52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑1 against Tottenham. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Leandro Cañete 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Armandas Kučys 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.
A 1‑0 win over Olimpija Ljubljana, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damjan Vuklišević 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.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. NK Celje deserved better, and so did he.
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑0 against FCSB, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Florjan Jevšenak did not need any: 7.93, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
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.
116 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
NK Maribor arrived with $2.2M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
He is going to NK Maribor, the club has $2.2M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Florjan Jevšenak, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.66
A mark of 7.66 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Leandro Cañete 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.
At 21 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.