Olimpija has a week to forget: after a long streak without a defeat, now two consecutive slip-ups, Koper just below the top after another win
Photo: Nik Moder / Sportida
For 17 long matches, he was unbeaten, but now Victor Sanchez has fallen twice in just a few days. If the setback in Germany during the Conference League match, partly due to the excellent performance shown by Olimpija, was truly not a tragedy, the dragons will be much more hurt by what happened to them at home on Sunday. In Stožice, they hosted Koper, who confirmed with a 1:0 victory that they are in very good form this season.
The Koper team is so spirited that after eleven matches, they are even in third place in the Prva liga Telemach standings, reducing their gap to the still-leading Olimpija to just two points! They are also ahead of Celje, with whom they have the same number of points, while despite losing in the Styria derby, Maribor remains second. The congestion at the top is truly remarkable: Olimpija has 22 points, Maribor 21, Koper and Celje 20 each, and Bravo is close behind with 19.
The hero of coach Oliver Bogatinov‘s squad was once again Omar El Manssouri, who scored a new goal for Koper while searching for players in the French market. The France-born footballer with a Moroccan passport is playing really well this season; last weekend, he scored the winning goal against Radomlje, and now against Olimpija as well.
Olimpija missed a penalty
The dragons’ net was shaken in the 16th minute when Nik Omladič and Isaac Matondo combined, with the latter passing the ball to the left wing to El Manssouri. The latter faced Marcel Ratnik in the penalty area, who failed to prevent the final shot, allowing the Koper player to beat Matevž Vidovšek for the visitors’ lead.
The clearly unmotivated Olimpija tried to equalize, but it simply wasn’t their day. The dragons did not create many promising opportunities, but they undoubtedly had the biggest one in the 50th minute when they received a penalty due to a handball in the penalty area. Diogo Pinto took the penalty, but he executed it very, very poorly, and Metod Jurhar had little trouble catching the ball.
Overall, Metod Jurhar looked very reliable once again; as he has countless times this season, in which he has remained unbeaten in eight matches in the Prva liga Telemach! In 11 appearances, he has conceded only 4 goals. By the end of the match, which became very tense, the score did not change, and Olimpija suffered their first league defeat of the new season.
This text was automatically translated using AI.
Author: editorial Football Planet