Milos Kos apologizes to Mandic: I made a mistake
The Partizan left back tells the Kontranapad podcast about the November 2024 incident in Zagreb and says he does not want it to define the rest of his career.
At the very start of preseason with Partizan, Milos Kos broke a finger on his right hand and spent a month and a half watching from the sidelines. Now that he is back and competing for minutes under coach Raul Gonzales, questions that have nothing to do with the court are following him again. The left back of Handball Club Partizan and Serbia international has spoken in detail for the first time about his attack on goalkeeper Matej Mandic in November 2024, and he apologized once more.
Kos, who is 24 and comes from Kozarska Dubica, appeared on the Kontranapad podcast hosted by Zika Bogdanovic, editor of the Balkan-Handball website.
What happened in Zagreb?
The incident took place in November 2024, after Zagreb lost to Nantes in the Champions League. According to Novosti, an argument in the team escalated into a physical attack on Mandic. The goalkeeper suffered serious facial injuries, had surgery and missed the 2025 World Championship. He now plays for Germany’s Magdeburg.
A criminal complaint was filed against Kos with the relevant prosecutor’s office. The sources do not say how the proceedings ended. Kos soon left Zagreb for Erlangen, where two serious injuries slowed him down.
The two were not strangers. Kos says they went to high school together and played together in Zagreb, and according to Mozzart Sport they grew up in Ljubuski.
What did Kos say?
He addressed his apology to three parties:
“Unfortunately, what happened, happened. I am very sorry about it. It has no place in sport. And I am apologizing here to Matej and his family and to the club, Zagreb. What happened on my side was not right.”
Kos insists this is not his first apology. “I really did apologize afterward,” he said on the podcast. He then explained how he looks at what he did:
“It is a life lesson for me. I was young. I was young. There are no alibis. I made a mistake and I regret it. If it could have gone differently, I would have changed it for sure. That is life, terrible things happen too.”
He spent the most time on the image he created for himself. “I do not want that incident to define my career, for everyone to know me for that. I do not want it to follow me all the time,” Kos said, and added:
“I am not a confrontational guy, I am easygoing, I laugh, I look forward to life, to the future. It was not easy for me back then. It would not have been easy for anyone in that situation. That was not me, that was not Milos Kos. I created a very bad image.”
How much did the incident slow his career?
Kos made his name at Izvidjac in Ljubuski, from where he moved to Zagreb. In his second season with the Croatian champions he scored against Denmark’s Niklas Landin Jakobsen on the final buzzer in a Champions League game against Aalborg. Many then predicted a move to Kiel, Barcelona or Veszprem.
Instead came Erlangen, then Partizan, his first club in Serbia. On the podcast he also talked about coach Toni Colina, who had a big influence on him, and about a bad experience in Germany, where he came to know the harsh side of professional sport. Still, he wants to go back: “I definitely want to play in the Bundesliga again.”
What awaits Kos now?
Kos openly admits he is not in form at the moment and does not play much in the Champions League early in the season. He believes better days are ahead and that he will earn a place at the World Championship in Germany in January.
The first chance comes tomorrow: Partizan faces Veszprem on Wednesday, October 14, at 6:45 p.m. Whether Kos gets minutes is up to Gonzales. What he said himself makes clear that he wants to change the story about him on the court, not on podcasts.
