Slovenia

M.L. King

M.L. King

The Preacher
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Head coach: Matjaž Kek
Captain: Robert Koren
Most caps: Zlatko Zahovič (80)
Top scorer: Zlatko Zahovič (35)
Home stadium: Stadion Ljudski vrt
FIFA ranking: 57
Highest FIFA ranking: 25 (December 2001)
Lowest FIFA ranking: 134 (December 1993)

Slovenia is a very small country, but with a great passion for football. The conditions, meaning football infrastructure isn't at its best. Companies could invest more funds into developing more sports centers, providing young talents with unique opportunity to maybe try their luck as professional football players.

As you are probably acquainted with, Slovenia is fairly young country and fought its independence from manacles of Yugoslavia 18 years ago. One would expect longer period before Slovenia trudged its way to recognition in the world. But with fast growing economy we already stepped into NATO and EU and broaden our friendships with many countries. The country is very popular for its unique landscape: sea, mountains, lakes, woods, etc.

I don't want to swerve from initial intention to present you a brief history of Slovenian football. Since the days in Yugoslavia, we had plenty of very respected footballer. Srečko Katanec, Branko Oblak and Danilo Popivoda are amongst the best known. However the golden age which will be always remembered is when this small country of merely 2 million people shocked whole football world with qualifying first to Euro 2000 and two years later to World Cup 2002 in South Korea and Japan.

We won against Ukraine in memorable match against Ukraine when Acimovic scored a goal from the middle of the field. You can imagine euphoria going on during those days. Football was the issue number one, talked everywhere you went. I remember skipping school just to watch the matches when we played.
 
Barcaman

Barcaman

Administrator
Staff member
Indeed qualifying for those major competitions was a major success. For example Bosnia and Hetrzegovina is twice Slovenia size yet it never qualified.
Zahovic was outstanding player and I liked Katanec as a coach, no matter how controversial he was
 
M.L. King

M.L. King

The Preacher
So tomorrow is the D-day, we play against Russia, will be a tough encounter, but I'm optimistic as we're usually very good against team from Eastern Europe. Serbia qualified, so it'd be great if Slovenia did it as well.
 
V

Valon

Guest
Hopefully you guys qualify. After Croatia missed out I'd hope Slovenia qualifies at least. :D Plus I don't like Russia :)
 
V

Valon

Guest
Congrats man, I was really happy to see Slovenia knock out Russia. :D
 
Lemmi

Lemmi

The Reckoner
not happy to see russia go out but you really deserve it and you had motherchunker of a tough group.

many congrats!
 
Narikjan

Narikjan

New member
Congratulations to the Slovenian supporters.

But they played very unfairly. So the man in black also was real sucker - can't understand why he sent off kerzakov and Zhirkov. slovenian keeper should have been sent off because he hit Kerz not Kerz him. Dissappointed very much, i will never wacth internationals anymore.
PS. Have any idea how much slovenia payed?
 
kozhell

kozhell

Member
Thanks guys! :) We were very lucky to get that away goal in Russia, but the 2nd leg was all about Slovenia. We dominated throughout the game, had more chances for goal and deserved to win.
And what I like about our national team is that it is relatively young (average age is about 27 years) and we don't rely only on one player, but the whole team is a good, solid unit. When we qualified for the WC in 2002, our best and main player was Zlatko Zahovic(used to play for Valencia) and the whole play was focused around him. Then he got into an argument with the coach and the national team literally fell apart. It took 6 years to rebuild the whole national team...After 6 years, we finally started playing decent football and this team finally isn't all about that "one" player, but the whole team is just brilliant and all-round...The future is bright for us! ;)
 
Narikjan

Narikjan

New member
kozhell said:
Thanks guys! :) We were very lucky to get that away goal in Russia, but the 2nd leg was all about Slovenia. We dominated throughout the game, had more chances for goal and deserved to win.
And what I like about our national team is that it is relatively young (average age is about 27 years) and we don't rely only on one player, but the whole team is a good, solid unit. When we qualified for the WC in 2002, our best and main player was Zlatko Zahovic(used to play for Valencia) and the whole play was focused around him. Then he got into an argument with the coach and the national team literally fell apart. It took 6 years to rebuild the whole national team...After 6 years, we finally started playing decent football and this team finally isn't all about that "one" player, but the whole team is just brilliant and all-round...The future is bright for us! ;)
Click to expand...

Do you really think your team win??? There were 12 of yours in the field and +2 on the lines. When Russia started playing hardly as in Euro, your gay-guy sent off our player. Your keeper hit Kerzakov then also one of yours did the same once more but not Kerzhakov (watch the moment once more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO-WF1aKFY4)
you can say that Russia had a lot of time to score but they didn't at all. But your man-in-black closed his eyes firmly to fauls against Russians.
You are talking about brightness... Shame on you and the team you support.

PS. Hiddink is well-known dude all around the world but if he didn't shake the hand of your manager it must mean something...This happened the first time, think about it
 
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