NK Celje

The club was formed in 1919 as SK Celje.[1][2] Soon after the World War II, in 1946, the club changed its name to NK Kladivar (expressionistic term in Slovene for a blacksmith). In 1964 they qualified for the Yugoslav Second League, where they played for one year.

In 1992, year after Slovenia gained independence from Yugoslavia, the club again changed its name, this time to Publikum. They reached the finals of Slovenian Cup in 1993 and 1995, but lost on both occasions, having been beaten by Olimpija and Mura. In 2003, Celje was in a title race with Maribor until the very last, but in the end finished second and also lost Slovenian cup finals against Olimpija in the same year. Two years later in 2005 the club reached Slovenian cup finals for the fourth time and this time they finally lifted their first trophy, defeating Gorica 1–0 in front of their own fans at the Arena Petrol. Celje were also in the finals the next year, but lost to Koper after the penalty shoot-out.

For most of its early years, the club played at the Glazija Stadium, but obtained the Skalna Klet after merging with ŽŠD Celje in 1967. Glazija was demolished in 1983 and the club moved permanently to Skalna Klet. Since the stadium was in bad shape and could not meet UEFA stadia criteria, the club officials decided to build a new stadium and in 2003 the main stand of the new Arena Petrol stadium was built. The capacity at the time was 3,600 covered seats. After 2003, three new separate stands were built and when the last one opened in 2008, the stadium was completed. The current capacity of the stadium is 13,059 seats from which around 50% are covered.[4] In July 2017, the stadium was renamed to Stadion Z'dežele.[5]

As of 5 March 2020[6]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Metod Jurhar 3 DF Dušan Stojinović 4 DF Josip Čalušić 5 DF Jure Travner (captain) 6 MF Nino Pungaršek 7 FW Denis Štraus 8 MF Karlo Plantak 9 FW Mitja Lotrič 10 MF Jakob Novak 11 FW Luka Kerin 12 GK Stefan Moćić 15 DF Amadej Brecl 17 MF Lan Štravs 19 FW Gašper Koritnik

No. Position Player 20 DF Žan Flis 21 MF Domantas Antanavicius 22 GK Matjaž Rozman 23 MF Žan Benedičič 24 FW Ivan Božić (on loan from Dinamo Zagreb II) 25 DF Denis Marandici 29 FW Dario Vizinger 30 DF Žan Zaletel 44 FW Stian Džumhur 50 MF Rok Štraus 77 FW Tom Kljun 88 MF Valentin Zekhov 97 DF Advan Kadušić

*Best results are highlighted.

All results (home and away) list Celje's goal tally first.

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1993–94	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	Preliminary round	Odense	0–1	0–0	0–1
1997	UEFA Intertoto Cup	Group stage	Antalyaspor	1–1	–	–
			Maccabi Haifa	–	1–0	–
			Lokomotiv Nizhny Novgorod	1–2	–	–
			Proleter Zrenjanin	–	0–0	–
2001	UEFA Intertoto Cup	First round	Aarhus	7–1	0–1	7–2
		Second round	Petržalka	5–0	1–1	6–1
		Third round	Lausanne-Sport	1–1	0–0	1–1 (a)
2003–04	UEFA Cup	Qualifying round	Belasica	7–2	5–0	12–2
		First round	Maccabi Haifa	2–2	1–2	3–4
2004	UEFA Intertoto Cup	First round	Sloboda Tuzla	2–1	0–1	2–2 (a)
2005–06	UEFA Cup	Second qualifying round	Levski Sofia	1–0	0–3	1–3
2012–13	UEFA Europa League	First qualifying round	Dacia	0–1	0–1	0–2
2013–14	UEFA Europa League	First qualifying round	Tromsø	0–2	2–1	2–3
2015–16	UEFA Europa League	First qualifying round	Śląsk Wrocław	0–1	1–3	1–4

Wikimedia Commons has media related to NK Celje.

• Official website (in Slovene)
• PrvaLiga profile (in Slovene)
• UEFA profile