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.
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.
Ante Kozina 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 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Rudar Velenje, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
8.08. 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.
Ilja Guschin 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.
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.
“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 Rudar Velenje know it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Rudar Velenje, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Vázquez 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rudar Velenje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Lejs Pličanić 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.
Tomás Areosa 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rudar Velenje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Rudar Velenje, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Adam Vošnjak and Rudar Velenje agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 10 and 4 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Ante Kozina 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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Lejs Pličanić 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.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Jul 2035
Lejs Pličanić 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Lejs Pličanić will want back
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Vošnjak 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.
66 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rudar Velenje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Allan Sousa 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.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rudar Velenje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Lautaro Vázquez scored in the 89th minute, NK Krka had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Rudar Velenje took the lot.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rudar Velenje is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Adam Vošnjak 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lautaro Vázquez. 1‑0 against NK Krka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
82 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rudar Velenje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Allan Sousa 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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Vošnjak 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 words a physio says slowly. 90 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A conversation is coming this week. Rudar Velenje will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad4 Sep 2034
Denis Nikić 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matevž Dajčar signs something — a contract at Rudar Velenje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 97 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with ND Gorica the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Rudar Velenje will enjoy reviewing.
33 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 127 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
7 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Allan Sousa 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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Vošnjak 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
142 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rudar Velenje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rudar Velenje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rudar Velenje have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 110 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2034
Adam Vošnjak 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 words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Mar 2034
Adam Vošnjak 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 words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Allan Sousa 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.
Squad6 Mar 2034
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adam Vošnjak 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.
In brief
SquadGal Gorenak has become a man the manager trusts
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rudar Velenje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Ante Kozina 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.
In brief
SquadAdam Vošnjak falls out with a teammate over standards
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Matic Brekalo has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Allan Sousa 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.
Squad6 Feb 2034
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lejs Pličanić 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Rudar Velenje, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Jan 2034
Adam Vošnjak 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.
In brief
Boardroom99% of the income goes out in wages at Rudar Velenje
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Rudar Velenje 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.