100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Blaž Kramer. 2‑0 against NK Krka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Sandi Kurtovic on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Simon Sluga has his answer from NK Celje; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Svit Sešlar’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Celje needing him to play as if none of it matters.
0‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Celje have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
7.76, 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.
He is 23 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.
NK Zavrc made NK Celje work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Łukasz Bejger 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. NK Celje will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Rudi Požeg Vancaš’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and NK Celje needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Svit Sešlar signs something — a contract at NK Celje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
0‑1 away to the standard of Pandurii. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at NK Celje 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sandi Kurtovic after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“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 Celje, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Slavia Mozyr waiting with a shirt. Nobody at NK Celje is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Žan-Luk Leban has gone, the accounts have $630.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
NK Celje close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 8 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
NK Maribor paid $630.0K and NK Celje took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darko Hrka 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.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.