It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at NK Zavrc this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Badžim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at NK Zavrc the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
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.
Squad17 May 2027
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rudar Velenje, and 11 appearances in 37 say he has earned the hearing.
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 Rastko Rastoka is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Rudar Velenje. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adam Vošnjak 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sandro Zukić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Sandi Balkovec has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tomas Oblak is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Adam Vošnjak signs something — a contract at Rudar Velenje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Rastko Rastoka has written the date down.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Claude Gonçalves and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Luka Badžim 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 asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
1‑4 to Koper, 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.
“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 NK Zavrc, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Zavrc can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Claude Gonçalves 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jakub Jurczyga has, at NK Zavrc, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Luka Badžim 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 music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout16 Nov 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 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Luka Skubic to a room that had heard them before.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
1‑5 against NK Domzale, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about NK Zavrc and NK Domzale in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at NK Zavrc, another week without a signature from Roko Brajković.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Hugo Šelih did not need any: 7.75, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Claude Gonçalves scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Zavrc have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Vall Janković 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Luka Badžim 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Hugo Šelih 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.
17 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.
Position 10 and 1 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.
“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 NK Zavrc, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 27 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at NK Zavrc 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.
The deal with NK Maribor is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Koper have kept their man, and NK Zavrc go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leonard Vuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Rudar Velenje scored in the 118th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
“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 offer from NK Domzale for Ajdin Kadrić 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. NK Celje have kept their man, and Rudar Velenje go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
7.42, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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.
The offer from NK Krsko for Hugo Šelih 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ivan Omazić is living that version at Rudar Velenje, and it tends to show in the first month.
Rudar Velenje asked and Koper said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Luka Janza has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Lejs Pličanić 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Rudar Velenje asked and NK Celje said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The phone has started ringing about Hugo Šelih again, and this time the name on the line is NK Krsko. Rudar Velenje are listening politely and promising nothing.
Still no offer on the table, and Lejs Pličanić’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.