The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 36 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Hugo Šelih did not need any: 8.22, 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. 8.73 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Matic Ferk 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.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 5 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Successful dribbles: 45. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Matic Janza 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 found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at NK Domzale pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Robert Birsa on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matic Janza was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 6.70 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. NK Domzale will try not to make too much of it.
Benjamin Bijol 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Louie Watson
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. NK Domzale had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Dawid Fornalik has just signed for NK Domzale, and for once the answer mattered.
Matic Kurtovic 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.
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 have made the call to NK Maribor. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
In brief
The dugoutBenjamin Bijol asks for a word with the manager
“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.
Matic Kurtovic 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 Dec 2026
Words at NK Domzale training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karlo Tomašec 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 year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at NK Domzale would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Benjamin Bijol trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Vid Brekalo’s exile