Marked for Benjamin Verbič
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at NK Celje, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Sep 2026
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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Business is business: Žan-Luk Leban goes
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match29 Aug 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for NK Celje
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. ND Gorica kept coming because nothing stopped them, and NK Celje will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and NK Celje did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market31 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. NK Celje have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market31 Aug 2026
Dejan Suhovršnik has left for ND Gorica in a $24.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
200 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Benjamin Verbič at his very best
Marked 8.15. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at NK Celje.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 NK Celje players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at NK Celje
9 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
Benjamin Verbič wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Benjamin Verbič found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and NK Krka went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Luka Kolar has gone, the accounts have $640.0K 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
NK Celje say no — this time
The offer from NK Zavrc for Florjan Jevšenak 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Business is business: Luka Kolar goes
NK Maribor paid $640.0K 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ararat-Armenia have kept their man, and NK Celje go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at NK Celje
Darko Hrka 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Bnei Sakhnin have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Papa Daniel. The answer from NK Celje has not changed — yet.
Match15 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over NK Krka, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
In brief
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Squad
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
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Player ratings
Nobody on the pitch touched Svit Sešlar
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against NK Zavrc, and it could have been more.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Mario Kvesić yet — 8.30
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.30 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market10 Aug 2026
Isloch come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and NK Celje did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Svit Sešlar commits to NK Celje for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Darko Hrka in a row with a teammate
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 Celje this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jure 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Erik Sikosek is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Luka Skubic 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.24 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
NK Celje say no — this time
The offer from Flora for Armandas Kučys 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Papa Daniel delivers — 7.71
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Papa Daniel scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Leonardo Koutris and NK Celje agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Leonardo Koutris 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Benjamin Verbič 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 dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Žiga Frelih
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about David Castro again, and this time the name on the line is NK Krsko. NK Celje are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match1 Aug 2026
Late, late show earns NK Celje a point
Minute 96, against Koper, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.