Nogometni klub Maribor is a Slovenian professional association football club based in Maribor. It was founded in December 1960 by officials and players of NK Branik Maribor. With 16 Slovenian PrvaLiga titles and 9 Slovenian Cups, they are the most successful Slovenian team. Maribor is also the only Slovenian club that reached the group stages of the UEFA Champions League.
In its early years, the club played in the Yugoslav Second League, before being promoted to the Yugoslav First League in 1967. They remained in the top division for five seasons, then dropped out and never returned to the Yugoslav top flight. In the early 1980s, the club was relegated to the third level due to a bribery scandal.
Following Slovenia's independence in 1991, Maribor were one of the founding members of the Slovenian PrvaLiga, and also won the inaugural edition of the Slovenian Cup in 1992. The first golden era of the club was between 1997 and 2003, when Maribor won seven consecutive league titles and reached the group stages of the 1999–2000 UEFA Champions League. In the mid-2000s, the club declined for several years and was plagued by major financial difficulties.
The second golden era of the club began in 2007, when Zlatko Zahovič was appointed sports director of the club. In the period between 2009 and 2019, Maribor won eight league titles, four cup titles, and qualified for the Champions League group stages twice.
Background The first step in the establishment of NK Maribor was the creation of the I. SSK Maribor on 28 June 1919. In 1920, the club acquired their first pitch at the Ljudski vrt area and played its first official competitive match against Rapid.
During the interwar period, the Slovenian football scene was dominated by clubs located in Ljubljana and therefore Maribor managed to win the Ljubljana Subassociation League title only three times (1931, 1933 and 1939). After World War II, FD Maribor stepped in as the successor of the I. SSK Maribor. In 1949, NK Branik Maribor was founded. The team was disbanded in August 1960 due to the food poisoning affair before the match against Karlovac in the promotion play-offs for the Yugoslav Second League.
Formation and early years (1960–1967)
Nogometni klub Maribor was founded on 12 December 1960 by officials and players of NK Branik Maribor, a club that folded a few months earlier. The board of the newly established club then organized the presidential elections. Srečko Koren was appointed as the first club president, Andrija Pflander as the first head coach, and Oto Blaznik as the first team captain. It was initially proposed that the club should be named NK Maribor 1960 and that the colours of the club should be red and white, inspired by the colours of the coat of arms of the city of Maribor. However, at the first general assembly on 26 December 1960, it was decided that the club would be called NK Maribor, with purple and white as its main colours. Blaznik was the one who proposed the combination of purple and white jerseys to the club board after seeing photos of Italian side Fiorentina in La Gazzetta dello Sport. Maribor played its first match on 5 February 1961, a friendly against Kovinar, defeating them 2–1 with two goals by Stefan Tolič.
Maribor started competing during the second part of the 1960–61 Slovenian Republic League, and took over the points and position of the city rivals ŽŠD Maribor. The first official league match was played on 12 March 1961, when Maribor played against Nova Gorica and won 2–0. The team won the Republic League (third tier in Yugoslavia) in its first season, and thus qualified for the play-offs to advance to the Yugoslav second division. Pflander was the head coach of the team that won the Republic title, however, he had to step down from the position due to illness. His successor became Vladimir Šimunić, who eventually led the team to the Yugoslav First League six years later. Maribor went through as a winner in the first two rounds of the qualifications and eventually defeated Uljanik from Pula in the final phase with 2–1 on aggregate, therefore earning promotion to the second Yugoslav division.
On 2 September 1962, football fans across Slovenia witnessed the birth of a new rivalry between Maribor and Olimpija. The first match between the two sides was played in Ljubljana and ended in a draw (1–1). After five seasons in the second tier, the club, managed by Šimunić, won the second division and qualified for the Yugoslav First League, making it one of only three Slovenian clubs in history to play in the Yugoslav top flight.
Yugoslav First League (1967–1972) The club's first match in the Yugoslav top division was played on 20 August 1967 against Vardar in Skopje, which ended in a 1–1 draw with Maras scoring the only goal for Maribor. The first home match was played on 27 August against Proleter Zrenjanin in front of 8,000 spectators, which Maribor won 3–0. The goals were scored by Mladen Kranjc, Milan Arnejčič and Boris Binkovski. During the same season, the first match in Yugoslav top division between two Slovenian clubs was contested, when Maribor hosted a match against their rivals Olimpija in front of 13,000 spectators, which ended in a goalless draw. Maribor finished its first top division season in 12th place. In 1966 and 1967, the team also won back-to-back Slovenian Republic Cup titles, beating Olimpija on both occasions. Furthermore, Maribor reached the semi-finals of the Yugoslav Cup in 1968, narrowly losing 2–1 to Crvena zvezda.
During their five-year stint in the Yugoslav top division, Maribor played a total of 166 matches and achieved 40 wins, 57 draws and 69 defeats, with a goal difference of 166–270. Their highest league position was in 1969–70, when the club finished in 10th place in a league with 18 teams. 1971–72 was their last season in the Yugoslav first division as the team finished in last place with just 20 points. Maribor never returned to the Yugoslav top division again.
In the first division, Maribor played a total of ten matches against Olimpija, with an overall score of two wins, three draws and five defeats. All matches between the two clubs during this time were sold out, with crowd attendance sometimes reaching up to 20,000. Mladen Kranjc, one of the best players in the history of the club, was the best goalscorer for the team in each of its five seasons spent in the Yugoslav top league, having scored 54 goals, which brought him a transfer from Maribor to Dinamo Zagreb.
The dark years (1973–1990) In 1972–73, Maribor played in the second Yugoslav division. In the last round, they defeated Rijeka 7–1 at home in front of 7,000 spectators, which was enough for second place and a place in the promotion play-offs. In the first qualifying round against Budućnost, Maribor advanced on penalties and qualified for the decisive round against Proleter. The first leg was played in Maribor on 8 July 1973, and is considered one of the most historic matches in the history of the club, as it still holds the record for the most spectators in the home game. There were 20,000 spectators, and almost three hours before the start of the match, about 15,000 people already gathered in the stands. Maribor won the match 3–1. Two goals advantage was, however, not enough as Proleter won the second leg 3–0 at home and earned the promotion to the top flight, eliminating Maribor 4–3 on aggregate. When the score was 1–0 for Proleter, Josip Ražić scored an equalising goal in the 23rd minute, but the goal was not awarded by the main referee. Later, the television review showed that the ball had actually crossed the line and that the goal should have counted.
After the dramatic play-offs against Proleter, a period of stagnation began for the club. Maribor finished the 1973–74 season in 13th place, and barely avoided relegation to the third tier. However, they were relegated the next season (1974–75), which meant that the team was not part of the top two divisions of Yugoslav football for the first time in 14 years. Maribor immediately returned to the second division after only one season and was again close to promotion to the top tier in 1978–79 when they finished as runners-up, six points behind Čelik. At the end of the 1980–81 season, Maribor defeated Čelik 4–2 in the decisive last round and finished in 10th place, and thus avoided relegation, when the bribery scandal, dubbed as the "Ball Affair" (), caused that the club was relegated by the disciplinary committee of the Football Association of Yugoslavia, from second to third division. The club allegedly had a secret fund that was used for bribing the officials and opponents. Some club officials recorded the cost of bribery in their "black book", which was later confiscated by the authorities. The club had to play in the Slovenian Republic League in the next season. During the 1980s, Maribor never fully recovered from the affair and was bouncing between second and third division up until Slovenia's independence in 1991. Between 1981 and 1989, Maribor won six Slovenian Republic Cups.
From 1988 and until Slovenia's independence in 1991, Maribor played in the West Division of the newly established Inter-Republic League (third tier of Yugoslav football) with teams from Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1988, Maribor joined the Branik Sports Association and became Maribor Branik. Although the club uses the name NK Maribor in domestic and international competitions, it is, nevertheless, officially registered under the name of NK Maribor Branik to this day.
New country and international debut (1991–1996) After Slovenia's independence in 1991, the best clubs in the country formed the Slovenian First League, or simply 1. SNL. Maribor were one of the founding members of the league and is one of only two clubs, the other being Celje, which has never dropped out from the Slovenian top division since then. The team played its first 1. SNL match against Gorica in Nova Gorica, which ended in a 1–1 draw. Later, the match was registered as a 3–0 win for Gorica because Maribor's goalscorer Ante Šimundža was not eligible to play for the team. Maribor had to wait until the second round when they won their first points after they defeated Koper with the score of 5–0. The club's first official scorer in the Slovenian League match was Igor Poznič. During the first couple of seasons, Maribor's rivals Olimpija from Ljubljana, which had a long tradition of playing in the Yugoslav first division and at the time still had their squad composed of players from that era, dominated the league. Despite, Maribor still managed to win the first edition of the Slovenian Football Cup. The final match was played in Ljubljana at the Bežigrad Stadium against Olimpija. The final ended in a goalless draw and was won by Maribor on penalties, with the decisive goal scored by Edim Hadžialagić.
In 1992–93, Maribor debuted in international competitions as the team played in the 1992–93 European Cup Winners' Cup. It was on 19 August 1992, when the team hosted Ħamrun Spartans from Malta and won 4–0. The next season, Maribor again played in the European Cup Winners' Cup and achieved its biggest victory in European competitions to date, when they defeated Estonian side Norma Tallinn 10–0 at home. The match is also historic for being the first match at Ljudski vrt that was played at night under the floodlights.
Maribor were Slovenian League runners-up in 1991–92, 1992–93 and 1994–95, and finished third in 1993–94. During this period the club managed to win another Slovenian Cup, in 1993–94, after defeating Mura in the final over two legs.
Domination (1996–2003)