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.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Rudar Velenje, and it is not being withdrawn.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 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Tilen Rajter Krebs is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Matevž Dajčar 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.
Marked 5.10. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Gal Gorenak has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadWords at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
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.
Squad1 May 2028
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tom Kljun 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.
“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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Tom Kljun 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.
Sabur Ali 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.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dejan Kuzmanović and Rudar Velenje agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Matevž Dajčar 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rudar Velenje can pretend not to have heard.
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
SquadWords at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Matevž Dajčar 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 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
SquadMatevž Dajčar has become a man the manager trusts
BoardroomThe Rudar Velenje production line keeps running
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.
Sabur Ali 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.
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.
13 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 12 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gal Gorenak is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Rudar Velenje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gašper Gaberšek Rotovnik 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.
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.
Position 8 and 16 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rudar Velenje they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
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.
Sabur Ali 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.
“I watch every Rudar Velenje game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Zavrc runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Sandro Zukić 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 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.
“I watch every Rudar Velenje game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at NK Zavrc runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Dec 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.
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.
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.
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.
Rodolfo Gamarra 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.
Squad16 Nov 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.
At 23 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.
Marked 8.47 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
16 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Lejs Pličanić 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Tom Kljun 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
SquadThe team sheet said everything about Filip Nović