Behind the Scenes on a UEFA Conference League gameday, at Slovenian upstarts NK Celje

Before the Conference League anthem came on in Celje Slovenia, one warm August night this year, today’s guest had a lot of work behind him already while I was was on my way via train, uber and rental car from Bosnia. He is Rok Gregoric, press and pr wizard of NK Celje, a Slovenian club that was long a middling in the league of an already small country but has made it to the group phase of the conference league last year and again this year. A remarkable feat for a really pretty quiet city between the two main Slovenian cities Ljubljana and Maribor. Find out why. But also: what goes on in a smaller club when a UEFA competition comes to town? How do they coordinate with the visitors? What security arrangements have to be made? Where does all the UEFA signage come from? Which media gets which access? Rok takes us behind the scenes of his work, and shares about the club and the city - and a remarkable coach. HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:NK Celje, websiteCelje, with city history, WikipediaNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/