Antonio Marin 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.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Gregor Birsa 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.
Nobody at NK Domzale 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. NK Domzale know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at NK Domzale, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Domzale have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The name of Luka Vipotnik has come up in conversations NK Domzale were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sandi Balkovec is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Gregor Birsa 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 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.
The offer from NK Krsko for Andraz Vipotnik 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.
Antonio Marin 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 20 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.
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 fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Domen Elsnik has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what NK Domzale can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at NK Domzale is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nahuel Méndez has agreed terms with Koper for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
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 Domzale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michael Pavlović 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
“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 Domzale, 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 NK Domzale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gregor Birsa 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
Squad7 new faces, and NK Domzale are still learning each other
The words a physio says slowly. 78 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Domzale will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Facundo Pons wants continental football; whether NK Domzale can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The words a physio says slowly. 101 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Domzale, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; NK Domzale are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Domzale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.