Marked for Sabur Ali
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Match26 Oct 2026
Position 14, 10 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Match24 Oct 2026
Nafta 1903 left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Rudar Velenje
13 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.
The dugout26 Oct 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 Jan Sikosek left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Something was said to Edi Horvat and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Sabur Ali knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rudar Velenje, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Anas Ibrahimović is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Oct 2026
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.
Match17 Oct 2026
It needed Marko Simić to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Dravinja, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maj Škoflek, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Half-satisfied: Jan Sikosek on the draw
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Something was said to Maj Škoflek and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Shots: 10, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Sabur Ali knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rudar Velenje, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
6 matches without a win for Rudar Velenje
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Rudar Velenje are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 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 Rudar Velenje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Rudar Velenje asked and NK Maribor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Bistrica, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Josip Perković 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 dugout21 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Jan Sikosek after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sabur Ali: “I am not a substitute”
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Rudar Velenje will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gašper Gaberšek Rotovnik’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Rudar Velenje needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Rudar Velenje's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Rudar Velenje has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad14 Sep 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Egaleo have kept their man, and Rudar Velenje go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lejs Pličanić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
He is 22 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.29 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
10 combined actions and 7.93. 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Jadran Dekani held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Rudar Velenje answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
Naftan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Rudar Velenje did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 16 in, 3 out at Rudar Velenje
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Rudar Velenje asked and Mura said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lejs Pličanić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A loan move for Teva Gardies is in the works
Rudar Velenje have made the call to NK Maribor. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Francesco Tahiraj'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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Rudar Velenje than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Jadran Dekani in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from Kustosija for Dominik Šimić 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
No thanks: Dylan Moody rejects the move
Rudar Velenje had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Southampton, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Match29 Aug 2026
4 matches without a win for Rudar Velenje
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Rudar Velenje are no longer polite ones.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad31 Aug 2026
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.83 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Rudar Velenje had the best player on the pitch.
Squad31 Aug 2026
13 new faces, and Rudar Velenje 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Southampton have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Match29 Aug 2026
It needed Tomislav Knežević to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Triglav Kranj, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
In brief
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The dugout
Half-satisfied: Jan Sikosek on the draw
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The dugout
The manager has not finished forgetting Rastko Rastoka's mistake
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The dugout
Sabur Ali knocks on the manager’s door