The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Aluminij had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Jan Đapo 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.
The phone has started ringing about Jaka Domjan again, and this time the name on the line is Jadran Dekani. Aluminij are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I watch every Aluminij game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Olimpija Ljubljana runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Aluminij than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matic Vrbanec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Aluminij will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Luka Kambič and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jan Đapo signs something — a contract at Aluminij or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aleksandar Zeljković trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
0‑1 to Radomlje, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Sandi Cerin left the room before anybody could ask which.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Aluminij pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Uroš Korun, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Emir Saitoski's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
NK Domzale next, and one man in the Aluminij dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aluminij this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matic Vrbanec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Uroš Korun’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Aluminij needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Josip Pejić signs something — a contract at Aluminij or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Aluminij. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Jan Đapo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Aluminij training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matic Vrbanec is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Josip Pejić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.51. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Uroš Korun, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Emir Saitoski is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aluminij can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aluminij they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Jan Đapo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Aluminij are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matic Vrbanec was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aluminij they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Aluminij will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Aluminij until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luka Kambič has just signed for Aluminij, and for once the answer mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Hajduk Split keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Matic Vrbanec and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
1 for Eric Taylor, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The offer from Primorje for Marko Simonič was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Hajduk Split is saying, and nobody at Aluminij is enjoying the guessing.
Jan Đapo 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.
Aluminij have gone to Tabor Sežana with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Matic Vrbanec falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Racing Genk have kept their man, and Aluminij go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aluminij is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luka Balkovec has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Robert Mevlja has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Timi Kampl is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.