Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Olimpija Ljubljana will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Olimpija Ljubljana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Yayah Kallon is on it.
Koper next, and one man in the Olimpija Ljubljana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olimpija Ljubljana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Nejc Ajhmajer has written the date down.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Olimpija Ljubljana will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
16 in and 19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not go to Suduva to sit and watch. I want to come back to Olimpija Ljubljana and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Ellis Simms
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ellis Simms has come out of that comparison in the side, and Olimpija Ljubljana have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Olimpija Ljubljana told Jan Gorenc something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match21 Aug 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Olimpija Ljubljana. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nemanja Motika was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Luka Mevlja on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Dinamo Zagreb is saying, and nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olimpija Ljubljana 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 Nemanja Motika was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
A 2‑1 win over Bravo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match7 Aug 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Olimpija Ljubljana. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diga 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.
Dinamo Zagreb 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Luka Mevlja on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Veljko Jelenković 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.
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.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Dino Kojić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Antonio Marin has his answer from Olimpija Ljubljana; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I did not go to Triglav Kranj to sit and watch. I want to come back to Olimpija Ljubljana and fight for my place.” 1 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and NK Krka waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Bravo for Job Brecelj 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olimpija Ljubljana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nemanja Motika 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.
Olimpija Ljubljana asked and Brinje Grosuplje said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana 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.
Position 3, 26 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Marko Brest 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 had been thinking. Diga 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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 9 appearances in 39 say he has earned the hearing.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olimpija Ljubljana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Yayah Kallon is on it.
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 Antonio Marin has written the date down.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olimpija Ljubljana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diga 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 watch every Olimpija Ljubljana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dravinja runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olimpija Ljubljana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana 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 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 language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Position 3, 26 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I watch every Olimpija Ljubljana game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dravinja runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Olimpija Ljubljana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Jasmin Kurtić 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 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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 Dimitar Mitrovski is on it.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Olimpija Ljubljana would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jan Gorenc, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Karlo Tomašec 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.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 9 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
0 appearances, 0 clean sheets, and a goalkeeper no further forward than the day he left. Whether that belongs to him, to the club that borrowed him or to the people who arranged it is the argument Olimpija Ljubljana will have this month.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Olimpija Ljubljana will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Olimpija Ljubljana asked and Sportivo Italiano said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 Dino Kojić is on it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olimpija Ljubljana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Dino Kojić 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.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 0 appearances in 17 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 Jasmin Kurtić is on it.
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 Antonio Marin has written the date down.
6 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Olimpija Ljubljana could ask drops and the wages Jurgen Çelhaka can ask rise.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Mura; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Antonio Marin will call it something else in private.
Tijan Lakić 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.
Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana 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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Tijan Lakić is a Olimpija Ljubljana player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olimpija Ljubljana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dino Kojić 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Olimpija Ljubljana told Ellis Simms something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Olimpija Ljubljana are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Ellis Simms takes the afternoon — 9.11
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ellis Simms provided it, and the 9.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Olimpija Ljubljana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Marko Brest 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Nemanja Motika 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.
Marked 8.36. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Olimpija Ljubljana.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Dino Kojić 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.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 12 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
Dino Kojić 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.
“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 Olimpija Ljubljana, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Olimpija Ljubljana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Bravo next, and one man in the Olimpija Ljubljana dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Olimpija Ljubljana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Antonio Marin has written the date down.
Nemanja Motika has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dino Kojić 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 won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.82, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Half the programme played, position 8, 8 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Bruno Lourenço is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Luka Mevlja chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matevž Vidovšek signs something — a contract at Olimpija Ljubljana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Indrit Tuci
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Dino Kojić has his answer from Olimpija Ljubljana; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“I did not go to Tabor Sežana to sit and watch. I want to come back to Olimpija Ljubljana and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
The dugout28 Sep 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Luka Mevlja to a room that had heard them before.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Olimpija Ljubljana told Veljko Jelenković something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dino Kojić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Olimpija Ljubljana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Luka Mevlja could afford to be generous.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Dimitar Mitrovski has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
4 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 12 arrived, 10 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Marvin Çuni 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 had been thinking. Nemanja Motika 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Olimpija Ljubljana, another week without a signature from Antonio Marin.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Ellis Simms has moved up it.
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Agustín Doffo leaves Olimpija Ljubljana the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
Olimpija Ljubljana paid $5.9M and Coventry City took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Everything agreed with Tottenham, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Loum Tchaouna 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Olimpija Ljubljana people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
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.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $5.9M for Ellis Simms, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lech have kept their man, and Olimpija Ljubljana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dino Kojić 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with Coventry City; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jošt Urbančič and Olimpija Ljubljana agree another 3 years.
Veljko Jelenković 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Coventry City hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Taiwo Awoniyi and Coventry City agree another 4 years.
Ethan Pinnock 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 general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Olimpija Ljubljana have gone to Coventry City with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Marko Brest 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.
“96 caps was 96 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 37 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Olimpija Ljubljana.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
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 Luka Mevlja left the room before anybody could ask which.