24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. NK Domzale lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Bayern Munich is saying, and nobody at NK Domzale is enjoying the guessing.
Vid Zajc 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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Rok Kampl 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.
NK Domzale asked and Paris Saint-Germain said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Erik Birsa, and the manager let it.
The dugout13 Aug 2029
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 Petar Birsa left the room before anybody could ask which.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. NK Domzale have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ilya Verenich is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Vid Zajc and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Rok Kampl 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Sparta Prague 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.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Gabriel Meunier is in the works
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Domzale lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
NK Domzale had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Feyenoord, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Vid Zajc 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 Jul 2029
Jure Ilicic has improved at 26, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Katić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around NK Domzale the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Petar Kampl 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rok Kampl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Vid Zajc is on it.
36 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
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 Arseniy Skopets has written the date down.
Vid Zajc 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin 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.
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
In brief
Player ratingsErik Birsa ran the middle of the pitch — 7.03
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.
Marked 8.40. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at NK Domzale.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denzel Owusu 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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at NK Domzale can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Paris Saint-Germain have kept their man, and NK Domzale go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Benjamin Birsa 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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Mark Gliha 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Jure Kurtovic 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Kevin Kampl 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tomas Stojanovic 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Petar Kampl 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Jure Ilicic has improved at 25, 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.
NK Domzale asked and Lokomotiv Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A loan enquiry to Paris Saint-Germain: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
In brief
The dugoutCedric Gondo has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutDaniel Katić knocks on the manager’s door
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and ND Gorica waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Domzale is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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.
Olimpija Ljubljana will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Michał Bierzało has pre-agreed a move to NK Domzale, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Zagreb have kept their man, and NK Domzale go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Benjamin Lovric 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.
He is 19, and nobody at NK Domzale signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
NK Domzale have made the call to ND Gorica. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Petar Kampl 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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 Cedric Gondo is on it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Dylan Ragolle
MatchContinental football is in reach for NK Domzale