Marked for Ignacio Zabal
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match24 Oct 2026
5 matches without a win for NK Zavrc
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around NK Zavrc are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” NK Zavrc may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Elton in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Zavrc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Plamen Krachunov, and the manager let it.
Match24 Oct 2026
0‑1 to NK Krsko, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match5 Oct 2026
NK Zavrc are in real trouble now
Position 8, 9 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Elton signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Elton and NK Zavrc agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and NK Zavrc know it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Rok Frešer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Agron Rufati
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Luis Pacheco in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Zavrc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.74 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match12 Sep 2026
It needed Felipe Barrientos to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Koper, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad14 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. NK Zavrc have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 4, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 9. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Aug 2026
NK Zavrc bow out of the cup
Rudar Velenje go through and NK Zavrc go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Zavrc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Hoover Crespo
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match22 Aug 2026
NK Krsko made NK Zavrc work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 7.63 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, NK Zavrc had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 2‑5 by NK Maribor, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rok Frešer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the NK Zavrc dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ignacio Zabal lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
5.53 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
5.66 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rok Frešer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Agron Rufati, and the manager let it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matevž Kukovec and NK Zavrc agree another 3 years.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at NK Zavrc, another week without a signature from Agron Rufati.
Squad10 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. NK Zavrc have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Market10 Aug 2026
NK Zavrc bring in an old head
Ignacio Zabal is 39 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.