Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Celje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Celje is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Łukasz Bejger 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Damjan Vuklišević has his answer from NK Celje; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Benjamin Verbič is on it.
6 shut-outs in 18 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Žan-Luk Leban has been having a lot of them.
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Tabor Sežana
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Tabor Sežana 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leon Sever was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Luka Ilicic after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Michał Litwa is in the works
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. NK Celje will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Leonardo Koutris 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Łukasz Bejger was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matej Poplatnik trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tabor Sežana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Three points for Tabor Sežana, 1‑0 the final word against Rudar Velenje in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Tabor Sežana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Sever 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Luka Ilicic kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Žan Žabkar did not need any: 8.19, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A season average of 7.01 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Tabor Sežana know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Leon Sever 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.
“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 dugout21 Dec 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 1‑2 Luka Ilicic left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Tarik Čandić 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.
Nobody at Tabor Sežana will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leon Sever was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Luka Ilicic to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Luka Kolar has come out of that comparison in the side, and Tabor Sežana have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tabor Sežana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Federico Rose 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Luka Kolar has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anej Kobal was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
1‑4 to Triglav Kranj, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tabor Sežana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Žan Žabkar 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.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Leon Sever 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tabor Sežana told Luka Kolar something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
It needed Edi Horvat to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against ND Gorica, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 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.” Luka Ilicic chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Triglav Kranj in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Tabor Sežana is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Ilirija 1911 the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Tabor Sežana will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Edi Horvat takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Edi Horvat provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tabor Sežana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Anej Kobal 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.
11 combined actions and 6.99. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Matevž Medič Slaček’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Tabor Sežana needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Tabor Sežana is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tabor Sežana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Tabor Sežana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leon Sever 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Tabor Sežana will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tabor Sežana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Luka Kolar arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Keenan Carole had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Tabor Sežana close the window on a squad of their own making
23 in and 14 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tabor Sežana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and Tabor Sežana are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Tabor Sežana than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Tabor Sežana know which stage they are at.