Marked for Eric Taylor
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Matic Vrbanec 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rok Schaubach and Aluminij agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match7 Nov 2026
Aluminij make home a hard place to visit
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Rok Schaubach 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.
The dugout9 Nov 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Vid Bijol chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
When it matters, Behar Feta plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play Aluminij right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Aluminij
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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Matic Vrbanec. 1‑0 against NK Maribor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 39, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Matic Vrbanec at his very best
Marked 8.19. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Aluminij.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Eric Taylor reaches 100 appearances
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Behar Feta runs at them all day
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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Vid Bijol could afford to be generous.
Squad19 Oct 2026
One booking too many, and a game watched from the stand. Aluminij lose him for the most avoidable reason in the sport.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Emir Saitoski and Aluminij agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Aluminij
Rok Schaubach 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Aluminij training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anej Dukarić 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tomislav Jagić, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Behar Feta gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Behar Feta is on it.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
NK Maribor 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aluminij know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Behar Feta wants to know why he earns less
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Aluminij have no good answer.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
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.