Pyunik continues moving ahead with confidence and is already in the playoffs of the Conference League qualification where it will face Slovenian champions Celje. The city team of the same name retreated here from the third qualifying round of the Europa League, losing to Shamrock Rovers in the confrontation (1:0, 3:1). In its turn, the champion of Armenia, keeping a clean sheet, was stronger than Kazakh Ordabasy (0:1, 1:0).

Celje has not left Slovenia's national championship, the First League, since its creation. The club is coached by a former famous footballer who recently started his coaching career.

This time our club's press service has highlighted the history of out last rival in the qualifying round.

The history of Celje’s creation

The history of football in the city of Celje dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, in 1919, when Celje was officially established. In the years leading up to World War II, the club played in the national championship and various league tournaments.

After the dissolution of the Slovenian clubs during the Second World War, the Fizkulturno Drustvo and Olymp sports association of Celje was established in the city. In autumn, both clubs merged with Kladivar football club, which was later to be changed and bear the name of the city.

Before independence, the club achieved its greatest success in the 1963-64 season, when it won both the Republic League and the Cup. Kladivar then played qualification round matches and secured their place in Yugoslavia's second federal league, the West, where they spent two seasons.

Independence of Slovenia and Celje

Before and even after the independence of Slovenia, the club changed its name several times.

Since 1991, Slovenia has held its own championships as an independent state. After the creation of the new championship, it took almost 11 years for Celje to achieve tangible success. they became the runners-up of the country.

Before the coveted champion title in the First League, Celje once again became the runner-up of the country. However, in the meantime, the team managed to win its first ever title in the 2004/2005 season, when the Slovenians won the cup.

Celje puts an end to the monarchy of the "violets" and opens a new page in its history

When the dominance of the most title-winning local club Maribor was already a norm for everyone in Slovenia, Celje appears on the horizon. In the 2019/20 season, our upcoming rivals broke the hegemony of the Violets after 8 consecutive wins in the championship.

With an advantage of 2 points, Celje also left Ljubljana behind, becoming the champion of Slovenia for the first time in history and starting a glorious period for the club.

In the 2023/24 season, Celje won the championship with the behavior characteristic of an experienced team. The city team was ahead of Maribor by 12 points and that time they didn’t give any chance to the rivals.

In order to get a complete picture of the supremacy of Celje in the previous season, it is enough to say that the top five scorers of the championship were the players of the city team. Slovenian Aljosa Matko led this list with 18 goals. Matko stood out twice in the qualifying matches of this season's Champions League.

Loyal footballers

Celje is known for its philosophy of honoring the players loyal to it.

Sebastian Gobec played 430 matches in the colors of the club. besides being a record, this rate is surprising because few players in non-title winning teams show such loyalty.

Dominik Bersnjak, who had various club records in his career, managed to leave a mark in the history of Celje, too; he is the best scorer in the history of the club with 47 goals.

At Euro 2024, Celje’s player against Ronaldo, Bellingham and other stars

Three players from Celje are invited to the Slovenia national team, of which David Zec and Tamar Svetlin made their debut in the national team this year.

Zan Karnicnik, one of the experienced footballers of the Slovenian national team, has a special place in the team. Zan participated in Euro 2024 this year and played full time matches in the group stage against England, Denmark and Serbia, and then in the play-offs against Portugal. Slovenia scored 2 goals in the European Championship, one of which was scored by Zan in the match against Serbia (1:1).


Sergiy Vakulenko once made Celje sad

The current champion of Slovenia has earned the right to play in the qualifying round of the Europa League thanks to winning places in the championship. From 2003 to 2015, they participated in this tournament 5 times, but left the fight in the first or second round.

In the 2020/21 season, the Slovenian champions participated in the Champions League for the first time. Due to the pandemic, all confrontations in that European Cup season consisted of one match.

Just a few days ago, Celje left Ireland head-on, while years ago they gave another Irish team the same feeling, giving Dundalk no chance.

After this victory, the Norwegian Molde became a tough obstacle for Celje, to which the champions of the country lost 1:2.

Having lost in the main European Cup, the Slovenians retreated to the third qualifying round of the Europa League. At that time, Celje was received by Ararat-Armenia in Yerevan and lost 0:1, dropping out of the European competition. It is noteworthy that the winning goal of that game was scored by the defender of our team, Sergiy Vakulenko, in the 111th minute of extra time. Besides Sergiy, Alemao and Yusuf Otubanjo defended the colors of the Armenian club from Pyunik.

In the current season, Celje started the struggle again from the Champions League. In the first round, the city team won the confrontation 7:1 over the Estonian Flora. In the next round, Slovenians were not lucky again, facing Slovan, which defeated Celje 6:1 and is already in the playoffs of that tournament. It is noteworthy that in the second round of CL, our rival Struga also suffered defeat from Slovan.

As we mentioned above, the champions of Slovenia had lost to the champions of Ireland Shamrock Rovers (1:0, 3:1) before meeting us.

Celje’s newcomers from famous clubs

During the summer transfer window, Celje has obtained 14 players. One of the newcomers, Samo Matiajaz previously played in various age groups of the reigning Serie A champion Inter. Another newcomer, Ivan Brnic, defended the colors of the Greek Olympiacos.

Armenian fans will be most familiar with Celje’s newcomer Kleman Lerno, who competed against Pyunik for Ararat last season.

Gerrard's teammate, former player of the Spain national team. Who is the head coach of Celje?

Celje has been coached by 42-year-old Albert Riera since July this year, who started his coaching career in 2020.

At the beginning of his career, the Spanish worked for 2 years as an assistant coach in the Turkish Galatasaray.

As a head coach, he made his first steps with Olimpija Ljubljana and succeeded. In the 2022/23 season, the young coach became a Slovenian champion and cup winner.

Riera's football career is another story. He became the champion of Turkey twice for Galatasaray and won the Super Cup as many times, he also won the country's cup once. The former midfielder won the Spanish Cup in the Mallorca team. Riera recorded the same success once again in Greece for Olympiacos.

Riera was invited to the Spain national team between 2007 and 2009 and played 16 matches.

He played for Liverpool during his club career, being a teammate of the legendary Steven Gerrard and other stars. In foggy Albion, he managed to defend the colors of Manchester City as well.

The Spanish specialist prefers attacking football and often uses a 4-3-3 formation.