There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. NK Celje will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.
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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Žiga Frelih 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Florjan Jevšenak and NK Celje agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 May 2027
Žiga Frelih 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.
35 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Žiga Frelih 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 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.
“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.
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.
In brief
SquadŽiga Frelih falls out with a teammate over standards
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at NK Celje heard it as anything else.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Žiga Frelih 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 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.
Žiga Frelih 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.
James Furlong 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.
“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.
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Žiga Frelih 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 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑3. 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Celje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Ivica Vidović obliged against ND Gorica. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is NK Celje.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 105th minute. ND Gorica will replay every second of the added time for a week.
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Coavoy 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Florjan Jevšenak signs something — a contract at NK Celje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 83 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
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 words a physio says slowly. 65 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason NK Celje will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
0‑3 against RC Strasbourg. The honest reading is not that the players were poor; it is that the distance between this club and that one is currently measured in things money takes years to buy.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Rudi Požeg Vancaš’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to NK Celje.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at NK Celje training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damjan Vuklišević 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.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 120 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; NK Celje are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.85 for the rest of it.
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.
Mario Kvesić damages knee ligaments — 102 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 102 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
1‑1 against Viitorul, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Jakov Pranjić was at the centre of the description.
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Erick Coavoy 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 NK Celje, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
126 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. NK Celje lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A 1‑0 win over ND Gorica, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Darko Hrka 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.
Papa Daniel 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Florjan Jevšenak signs something — a contract at NK Celje or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.