Mura 05 eye the European spots and Triglav pull another rabbit out of the hat

In round 30 Triglav managed to keep piling points on the board when they won a tight game away to Domžale, the visitors getting the win courtesy of a Nack Patrick Balokog own goal just before the half hour mark. Koper and Celje passed by without any goals, but Olimpija did plenty to help their chances of taking the second spot when they won away at Gorica in a five goal ding-dong. Own goals being the order of the day, Gorica only scored one goal, when Vito Plut scored the fifth of the match on the 80^th minute, Olimpija’s Boban Jovič having chalked one up for the home team when he put the ball into his own net at the beginning of the first half. Over in Prekmurje, Mura proved the top dogs out East when they put three past Nafta without reply in Lendava.

Round 30:

Koper 0:0 Celje

Gorica 2:3 Olimpija

Rudar 0:3 Maribor

Domžale 0:1 Triglav

Nafta 0:3 Mura

Round 31 has already begun, with Olimpija leaving it late to score the only goal in their game at home to Nafta last night. Second half substitute   Filip Valenčič scored his third goal of the season after 84 minutes to seal the win and to put Olimpija eight points clear of third placed Gorica who visit Celje tomorrow. Maribor face bottom club Triglav at home, but the team from Kranj are putting up a good fight at the moment. At the other end of the table, a win for Maribor will see them one agonising point from the title, with five games still play after this round.

For some reason that I can’t quite fathom, round 32 takes place next weekend, but Olimpija play their round 33 fixture this Wednesday when they welcome Triglav to the capital. I imagine Stožice has been booked up by some stadium-rock behemoths on a world tour, or some such non-football nonsense…

Round 31 (all times CET)

Olimpija 1:0 Nafta

Saturday 21^st April

Koper v. Domzale (16:00)

Sunday 22^nd April

Celje v. Gorica  (16:00)

Mura v. Rudar (16:00)

Maribor v. Triglav (17:30)

Maribor pretend to choke and Koper and Triglav find form from somewhere

Correction: Well, I managed to make a pig’s ear of when the fixtures are going to be taking place, thanks largely in part to being foolish enough to believe what the Prva Liga put on their website. The fact is, the rest of the fixtures aren’t all on Saturday, in fact they’re all over the shop. So that’s me told.

There’ve been another three rounds that have bundled past since the last post. With the title within stroking distance, Maribor managed to throw points away left, right and centre. Round 27 saw three draws as only Mura 05 and Olimpija managed to chalk up wins in the pursuit of second place:

Round 27:

Luka Koper 2:2 Maribor

Gorica 1:1 Triglav

Celje 1:3 Mura 05

Nafta 1:1 Rudar

Olimpija 2:0 Domžale

Olimpija’s win over Domžale was a pretty workmanlike effort, they huffed and puffed and managed to wrap the game up, but no one manages to put points on the board with the ease that the Viola seem to manage. This is something that someone needs to work out how to do next season, and Olimpija seem to be the most likely in terms of resources and raw potential.  Maribor’s draw away to Koper could have had some significance if the season was still in its spring, but there’s too much daylight now, dead-rubbers aplenty are on the way for Maribor.  It wasn’t too shocking in round 28 when Gorica repeated the trick that Koper had pulled off, and managed to stop Maribor scoring.

Round 28:

Luka Koper 3:1 Mura 05

Gorica 0:0 Maribor

Domžale 1:1 Rudar

Celje 1:2 Olimpija

Nafta 1:2 Triglav

The highlights of this round were away from the top two. It’s great to see Triglav taking four points from two matches. Their win over Nafta kept them in touch and means that the automatic relegation spot is nowhere near being a foregone conclusion. It’s also very interesting to see that Koper have thrown themselves back into contention for the European spots. The club from the coast have been an impotent force for much of this season, but they’ve been putting some good results together to find themselves up in fourth place after their surprise win away at Olimpija in round 29:

Round 29:

Maribor 6:0 Nafta

Celje 0:2 Domžale

Triglav 1:5 Rudar

Mura 0:1 Gorica

Olimpija 0:1 Koper

After my opening contrition, round 30’s matches do all take place on a Saturday, this Saturday, in fact. The tie of the round should be the second versus third encounter between Gorica and Olimpija, but I have a feeling that Koper’s clash with Celje and Nafta’s with Mura might be where the entertainment is to be found.

Round 30 (all times CET)

Saturday 14^th April, 2012

Luka Koper v. Celje (17:00)

Rudar v. Maribor (18:00)

Nafta v. Mura 05 (18:00)

Domžale v. Triglav (20:00)

Gorica v. Olimpija (20:00)

Due to a trip to see Laibach at the Tate Modern with my slovenka, I’ll not be watching any of the games live, but it’s kind of tenuously related enough to feel like a reasonable excuse.

Position	Team	Played	Points
1.	Maribor	29	66
2.	Olimpija Ljubljana	29	49
3.	Gorica	29	47
4.	Luka Koper	29	44
5.	Mura 05	29	44
6.	Rudar	29	39
7.	Domžale	29	36
8.	Celje	29	31
9.	Nafta	29	24
10.	Triglav Kranj	29	20

You can start engraving the trophy, begin with a capital M and do one letter a week…

A whistle-stop jaunt through the Prva Liga today. ‘The real world’ has been rudely intruding away from the blog, so this is just going to be a quick run down of the results from the past two weeks before today’s matches get underway. Lots of points have been split between the teams fighting it out for the European places, but Maribor’s title might as well be awarded to them now. There are ten games left to play in this year’s competition and the Viola are 18 points ahead of second placed Olimpija.  With a round of midweek matches and all the other games all taking place on Saturdays during April, it’s almost guaranteed that Maribor will have it sown up within the month – no doubt making them one of the first national champions in the 2011/12 season (those playing a summer-spring season at least). Triglav and Nafta have got a lot of work left to do if they want to drag anyone else into the mire at the bottom.

Oh, and in one final bit of news, it’s just come to my attention that Rudar Velenje might have forced Luka Majcen to shave off the finest beard in European football. I need to get to the bottom of this, it seems Majcen’s impressive chin warmer was being cultivated as a challenge, only to be removed once he’d chalked up 12 goals. Somewhere along the line, the facial hair has become a distraction, either for the player or the club. Well, the beard’s gone and he’s currently on 8, four short and no beard. the shame…

Here are the last three rounds:

Round 24:

Saturday 17^th March:

Domžale 1:2 Gorica

Nafta 1:2 Luka Koper

Rudar 1:1 Celje

Maribor 3:1 Mura

Sunday 18^th March:

Triglav 0:2 Olimpija

Round 25:

Tuesday 20^th March:

Luka Koper 3:1 Rudar

Wednesday 21^st March:

Mura 3:4 Domžale

Olimpija 1:2 Maribor

Celje 3:0 Triglav

Gorica 3:1 Nafta

 

Round 26

Saturday 24^th March

Domzale 0:0 Nafta

Rudar 1:0 Gorica

Sunday 25^th March:

Triglav 0:2 Koper

Maribor 3:1 Celje

Mura 1:0 Olimpija

 

And this weekend’s fixtures (all times CET):

Today:

Gorica v. Triglav (16:00)

Celje v. Mura (16:00)

Olimpija v. Domžale (17:00)

Nafta v. Rudar (18:00)

Tomorrow:

Koper v. Maribor (17:00)

And, finally, the league table as we enter the final 10 rounds:

Pos	Team	Played	Points
1.	Maribor	26	61
2.	Olimpija Ljubljana	26	43
3.	HiT Gorica	26	42
4.	Mura 05	26	41
5.	Luka Koper	26	37
6.	Rudar Velenje	26	34
7.	Domžale	26	32
8.	Celje	26	31
9.	Nafta Lendava	26	23
10.	Triglav Kranj	26	16

Round 23: Gorica slip to fourth as Mura take advantage…

After a couple of surprises and near-misses in the first round after the winter break, round 23 was very much a return to business as usual. Saturday’s fixtures saw the points shared in the matches between Celje and Nafta (1:1), and a listless Primorska derby between Koper and Gorica that ended goal less.  The best of the day’s action was to be found in a highly entertaining encounter between Maribor and Domžale at the Ljudski vrt.

Etien Velikonja scored first for Maribor, getting his head on the end of a sublime cross – though the Celje defence might have questions to ask about their marking, a little harsh perhaps, given the tempo of Maribor’s counter attack. Just before the break Saša Aleksander Živec instinctively redirected a freight train of a cross to restore parity.  Domžale were no pushovers and gave the home side plenty to think about in the second half, though the quality of the league leaders shone through when Dalibor Volaš bundled home a loose ball just after the hour. The ugliness of the goal seemed even crueller given the fantastic display Nejc Vidmar put in in the Domžale goal – my clear man of the match. I haven’t seen a tremendous amount of Domžale this season, but I’ll be keeping an eye on Vidmar to see if this kind of performance is a regular occurrence. One thing’s for sure though; Domžale still manage to ship goals at times, and Vidmar’s two red cards of the season can’t have helped.

Sunday’s game at Stožice was an altogether less inspiring display. Olimpija had to make do without the previous week’s debut hat-trick wizard Dejan Djermanović who was out with a muscle strain, and for much of the first half they lacked invention. The hard work was done in three first half minutes, first by a nicely placed shot from Dalibor Radujko, followed at the 45^th minute by an impertinently languorous penalty from the boot of Dare Vršič, who is rapidly closing in on 20 goals for the season. The impressively bearded Luka Majcen got one back for the visitors just after the hour but the points belonged to Olimpija. As a side note, I still think there’s a problem with the atmosphere in Stožice, it’s hard to tell when watching on a computer in Britain, but the stadium and the football watching public have got a long way to go to come close to the Ljudski vrt, the passionate efforts of the Green Dragons notwithstanding.

It might be an architectural thing. The atmosphere at Mura’s Fazanerija seemed pretty decent, it’ll be interesting to see what it’s like when Maribor and Mura meet later today in the Severovzhodni derby. After a goalless first half     Nusmir Fajič and Damjan Bohar both scored to secure a 2:0 win for the home side against Triglav, taking Mura 05 up into third place, two points behind Olimpija.

Round 23 results:

Koper 0:0 Gorica

Celje 1:1 Nafta

Maribor 2:1 Domžale

Olimpija 2:1 Rudar

Mura 2:0 Triglav

 

This weekend’s fixtures (all times CET):

Today:

Domžale v. Gorica (13:00)

Rudar v. Celje (16:00)

Nafta v. Koper (17:00)

Maribor v. Mura (17:30)

Tomorrow:

Triglav v. Olimpija (15:00)

Triglav come out swinging and Olimpija get intimate with the back of the net…

So, spring has arrived (for the purposes of the Prva Liga), and an uneventful transfer window came and went.  Over the weekend we were back to business as usual: Maribor rolled into Kranj with an imperious and surely unassailable 12 point league carried over the winter. Time for a gentle run-out against bottom of the table Triglav – stretch the muscles out get a bit of scoring practice in, ready for their steam-rollering of the rest of the campaign.

Except Triglav Kranj had other ideas. Like a bear waking from hibernation a long way from a box of paracetamol, the boys at the bottom bared their teeth at the first bit of 2012 action. A pretty respectable crowd turned out at Kranj’s ‘modestly’ sized ground to see Anže Jelar open the scoring for the hosts just before the half hour. Jelar benefited from Nejc Potokar’s uncanny impression of a swing door in the Maribor defence that caused Jasmin Handanovič to spot the ball coming at him late, too late.

Žan Pelko performed a heart-in-mouth-highwire-spectacular in the Kranj goal, but he managed to prove that, even if it isn’t pretty, keeping the ball out of the net is all that matters when you’re the underdog.  Kranj were awake, alive in the spring sunshine, and if the first goal was a moment of cheek, the second was something special from Enis Đurkovič (about 1:09 here). Teams at the top of the table would do well to take note of this study into how to unlock the Maribor defence. No doubt if manager Darko Milanič gets his way it won’t happen again. Maribor managed to get a consolation goal long after the 90 minute mark passed, but they’re left to reflect on a game that they could, and should, have got something from.

Another team to fare better after the break were Olimpija, who showed no festive sluggishness at all when they destroyed Nafta in Prekmurje. Dare Vršič (who else) opened the floodgates from the penalty spot 8 minutes into the game. Nafta may have felt a little hard done by, the deep furrow carved outside the area by Saša Levačič’s clumsy tackle being pretty decent proof that a free-kick was probably the right shout.  Them’s the breaks; Levačič was shown red and Olimpija chalked a one on the board. The man of the day was surely Dejan Djermanovič who scored a hat-trick on his debut, a bright start for both him and Olimpija for the second half of the season, although, even with their loss, Maribor look too far ahead already. Olimpija may have to settle for second. Djermanovič has already scored one more goal for Olimpija than he did in 9 games for Litex Lovech in the first half of the season.

Gorica are the team with the most opportunity to pip Olimpija for the silver medal spot, although they suffered a shaky start to a Celje team they looked far ahead of for the first 30 minutes of the match. Comfortably ahead through Sandi Arčon after eight minutes, Gorica eventually lost their advantage to a 42^nd minute penalty. Celje managed to keep things under control and stifled Gorica to a 1:1 draw.

So, the first games after the winter-break turned out like this:

Rudar 1:2 Mura 05

Domžale 1:0 Luka Koper

Nafta 0:6 Olimpija

Gorica 1:1 Celje

Triglav 2:1 Maribor

 

This weekend’s fixtures (all times CET):

Saturday:

Celje v. Nafta (15:00)

Maribor v. Domžale (16:00)

Koper v. Gorica (18:00)

Sunday:

Mura 05 v. Triglav Kranj (15:00)

Olimpija v. Rudar Velenje (15:00)

All Quiet on the Isonzo Front

Apologies to anyone who’s been dropping by only to discover a lack of activity – it’s the winter break in the Prva Liga, so I thought I’d take one too. The next round of games doesn’t kick off for over a month (games will be played on the 3^rd and 4^th of March, weather permitting), but I thought for the sake of the historical record I should put up the results of the last round of matches played all the way back in early December…

Round 21

Maribor 1:0 Rudar Velenje

Celje 0:4 Luka Koper

Triglav Kranj 1:1 Domžale

Mura 05 2:0 Nafta Lendava

Olimpija 1:2 Gorica

Over the break the league looks like this:

Position	Team	Played	Points
1.	Maribor	21	49
2.	HIT Gorica	21	34
3.	Olimpija	21	34
4.	Mura 05	21	32
5.	Rudar	21	30
6.	Luka Koper	21	27
7.	Celje	21	25
8.	Domžale	21	25
9.	Nafta	21	21
10.	Triglav	21	13

So, Maribor are a whopping 15 points ahead at the half way mark – they’re unlikely to give that up, even with a number of departures expected before the end of the transfer window. Triglav look adrift, but the teams at the bottom keep churning out surprising results, in both a negative and a positive sense.

The transfer window closes across Europe on Tuesday night, so we’ll have a round-up of the winter movements. Oh, and today saw Cheltenham Town (the bookies’ favourites for relegation) rise to the top of League 2 in England – thought I should drop that in somewhere…

How to make a Styrian Crumble, and catching up with the Prva Liga

Maribor’s penultimate Europa League game was played this evening, with the Viola with only a mathematical chance of making it through.  Playing largely for honour, it was up to the Slovenes to see what they could get out of their last home game and the arrival of Club Brugge.  Maribor duly obliged, with Dalibor Volaš putting the home side ahead on the 11^th minute. A lead that was doubled five minutes after the break, when Club Brugge’s Ryan Donk suffered the ignominy of scoring an own goal. When Dalibor Volaš popped another in with just over 20 minutes left, it looked like Maribor had wrapped up the tie.

However, Jasmin Handanovič’s European horror might end up having more instalments than the SAW films. Nabil Dirar gave the visitors all the hope they needed by scoring two goals in three minutes (74 & 77), before substitute Joseph Akpala levelled the match with nine minutes left.  The scene was set for Ryan Donk to make good and the Dutch defender duly obliged by sticking the knife in and turning the blade on the 90^th minute. 4 – 3 to the Belgians, must make you sick to be a Maribor supporter.  Their final match is away to Birmingham in mid-December.

The blizzard of league games has come thick and fast in anticipation of the winter break, so without further bluster or ceremony, here is a quick rundown of the last three rounds. Simple scores, the last round of fixtures before the winter break, then the league table:

Round 18:

Maribor 2:2 Luka Koper

Rudar 2:4 Nafta

Domžale 0:1 Olimpija

Triglav Kranj 0:2 Gorica

Mura 05 4:0 Celje

Round 19:

Maribor 2:1 Gorica

Rudar 6:0 Domžale

Triglav Kranj 1:1 Nafta

Mura 05 1:0 Luka Koper

Olimpija 0:0 Celje

Round 20:

Luka Koper 2:0 Olimpija

Gorica 1:2 Mura

Rudar 3:0 Triglav

Domzale 0:2 Celje

Nafta 0:3 Maribor

Some pretty interesting fixtures before the winter break.  The top four play amongst themselves, so it’s entirely possible that Maribor could have a lead of 15 points over the winter…

Round 21: (all fixtures on the 4^th December, times CET)

Triglav Kranj v. Domžale 13:00

Mura 05 v. Nafta 13:00

Olimpija v. Gorica 14:00 (TV)

Celje v. Koper 15:45 (TV)

Maribor v. Rudar 16:00

And, the league table going into those matches:

Position	Team	Played	Points
1.	Maribor	20	46
2.	Olimpija Ljubljana	20	34
3.	HIT Gorica	20	31
4.	Rudar Velenje	20	30
5.	Mura 05	20	29
6.	CM Celje	20	25
7.	Luka Koper	20	24
8.	Domžale	20	24
9.	Nafta Lendava	20	21
10.	Triglav Kranj	20	12