“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Maribor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mathieu Patouillet trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Krsko lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Andreas Ivan 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.
In brief
SquadWords at NK Krsko training over how hard people work
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around NK Maribor are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A first appearance Rok Sesko will want to forget — 5.16
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.16, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Ažbe Jug 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 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.
“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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at NK Maribor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Pierre Fuentes 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.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the NK Maribor dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
113 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Krsko lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” NK Krsko have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 Krsko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Lan Vidmar 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.
“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 Krsko, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at NK Krsko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joel Anasmo 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 easiest signature of my career.” Franciszek Antkiewicz and NK Krsko agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. NK Krsko told Lan Vidmar something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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 Maribor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.38. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at NK Maribor.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at NK Maribor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Pierre Fuentes 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Andreas Ivan 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at NK Krsko training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lan Vidmar 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at NK Krsko can tell you which week it ends in.
7 points and a position everybody in the ground can do the arithmetic on. The songs have stopped being about the team and started being about surviving, which is a different noise entirely.
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 Krsko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Lan Vidmar 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Ažbe Jug 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 no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Ažbe Jug
Position 8 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 24 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
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 Krsko this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jure Zupan 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.
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 Maribor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. NK Maribor know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Ažbe Jug 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.52 — 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at NK Maribor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean Pierre Fuentes 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.