NK Olimpija Ljubljana

Short info

Club history:
Olympia is an otherwise small town in the Peloponnese, where the ancient Greeks organized the ancient Olympic Games between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD. The town also gave its name to the modern Olympic Games and, of course, to some sports clubs, the most famous of which are the Greek Olympiakos and the Paraguayan Olimpia Asuncion. But how was it here?
In 1955, at a time when the club was called Odred , a sports club was founded at the University of Ljubljana, designed as an umbrella organization for student sports activities. At the suggestion of one of the founding members present, Dušan Brglez, the new club was named Olympia .
When the Bežigrad football club left the Odred sports club a few years later and briefly changed its name to the generic all-Slovenian Triglav , the Academic Sports Club was already the strongest and best-organized sports organization in Ljubljana. At the end of 1961, the long-planned merger of Triglav with AŠD Olimpija finally materialized and the football club received the name it still bears today. The club entered the spring part of the 1961/62 season as Olimpija .
The club played its first official match under its new name on 25 March 1962 in Nova Gorica. 2,500 spectators gathered, who, despite good playing conditions, saw an average football performance. Olimpija recorded a routine victory with goals from Živko Velkavrh and Danilo Brezigar. That season, Olimpija returned to the second federal league with first place in the SNL and within a few years also climbed to the highest rank of the competition. From 1965 onwards, the name Olimpija was synonymous with Slovenian football.


Ultras GDLJ history:
In the first half of the 1980s, there was a lull in the fandom in Ljubljana, but this was interrupted by the excellent series of the Olimpija Football Club, which after a few years was fighting for promotion to the first federal league again.

Chanting and clapping have been occurring at the stadium behind Bežigrad since 1986, and our first match is considered to be the match against Pristina in the fall of 1988, when the banner with such a beautiful name appeared for the first time: Green Dragons. The author remains unknown to this day, and he probably did not realize what he had caused by doing so.

In the first matches, the group was led by boys from Zasavje (Trbovlje, Zagorje), but soon after promotion to the first league, the people of Ljubljana took on most of the burden. New banners were appearing, branches were being organized (Črnuče, Bežigrad, Šiška, Vič), and derbies with the big four clubs (Crvena Zvezda, Partizan, Hajduk and Dinamo) were also approaching.

In those months when the former common state was falling apart, it was not known for a while in which competition Olimpija would play. The Slovenian league was created, but it consisted of clubs that were a few light years behind Olimpija. When the club later joined this competition, we also lost a worthy opponent in the stands. It is true that a few guys who were previously Green Dragons broke away from the group and started organizing local fan groups in their own circles, but proving ourselves to such groups was not in our interest.

More matches and competition raised us from the ashes. The first notable away game was against Medvode, when the players lent us a bus and drove themselves to the game in their own cars. The peak of the season was the legendary 6th of May 1992, when a phenomenal 700 of us gathered for the conditions at the time. The cheering was wild, full of imaginative choreography, torchlight, and at the end of the game there was even a celebration on the pitch, and we took all the banners from the opposing fan group that they had brought with them to Ljubljana.

After the summer lull, the biggest away game of Slovenian fans abroad awaited us, where 150 Slovenians presented themselves very well against the best football club in the world at the time, AC Milan. The Rosseniero fans were delighted with us and, despite the insignificant game, returned to visit us in similar numbers two weeks later.

We did not forget about football and so we followed our club everywhere in Slovenia, wherever it played. True, sometimes with just two or three cars, and sometimes with several buses, but we left a certain impression everywhere we went. At the beginning of the Slovenian league, as the largest (and still is today) and oldest group, we announced that we would not attack anyone, and we would not let anyone attack us. We will respect you as you will respect us. Well, and because some groups drew all their energy against us (because of this, they later disbanded), there were many fights at matches in the first years, and this was contributed to, in addition to rivalry, by the insufficient security of these events. In addition to matches, we Dragons also met on other occasions, one of which was our first five-year anniversary in 1993. For the first time, we lit 103 torches in Slovenian stadiums, cheered loudly throughout the match, and in the end, the players gave us a victory against Mura.

Years of stagnation and decline followed. Due to the hypocrisy of the management and their inaction, a one and a half year strike also took place, where we pointed out the club's problems in various ways. With the arrival of a new director, hope for revival sprouted again for a while.

The following football season brought new dimensions to Slovenian football with the games of Sebastjan Cimerotič. The first real football star of the home turf became ours – Cime! And with the help of his moves, Olimpija celebrated the autumn champion. This autumn, on the way to Maribor, one of the biggest incidents in the history of fandom in Slovenia occurred! From completely insignificant coincidences and thanks to the incompetence of the Slovenian police, a general fight broke out at the Štore railway station near Celje, where it was briefly broken up by representatives of the authorities, and as many as 74 Dragons were detained. A record!!! This was truly a time of general euphoria, which followed the change of management and excellent performances on the fields. The show in the stands of course immediately caught up and was followed by truly beautiful shows made by Green Dragons, reaching its peak at the last match of the season, when 1500 of us gathered (not all fans could enter the stands, although they also opened a buffer zone). Olimpija drew with its eternal rival Maribor and thus lost the title by only one point.

This was followed by the resurgence of football Olimpija, which recovered with financial assistance and made some player purchases. The relaunch of the club's marketing and advertising brought more spectators to the stadium for Bežigrad and in the 2002/2003 season it was the best attendance in the league after Bežigrad, and we Green Dragons also did our part. We gathered from 150 on for the matches, followed by some good performances against Publikum (450), Maribor (600) and Koper (300), unfortunately, due to behind-the-scenes games, all of this was not enough to win the national championship title. We visited all over Slovenia in very solid numbers (Celje, Koper, Novo Mesto and Maribor – everywhere 200 and more), and we always went to other away matches in numbers over 50.

A season later, 30 of us visited Dublin, the reason being the preliminary round of the Uefa Cup, and the draw determined that our next opponent was the famous Liverpool, against whom we also celebrated our fifteenth anniversary of active activity and completely overshadowed the 800 English fans. A little over a thousand of us gathered. 130 of us went to the return match, but for reasons that are still unexplained today, the plane in Treviso refused to fly with us. However, Olimpija was not left without support in England, as 30 Green Dragons had already traveled there the day before.

Recently, Ljubljana's sports have been plagued by a number of problems, and there is no longer a club in collective sports that would master its competition. Because of these problems, we, the Green Dragons, have also found ourselves in an unenviable position, as the general interest in sports in Ljubljana is declining. However, this does not stop us from our efforts to help Olimpija to victory as loudly and innovatively as possible. Thus, even in a situation where it was clear that NK Olimpija would go to a lower level of the competition, we gathered 850 fans in our stands against Maribor, who cheered for Olimpija throughout the entire match, and at the same time, they also made everything more interesting with beautiful choreography.

When the football team Olimpija ended its journey in Ljubljana, there was no hero who would say at that time that he wanted to revive national pride through work and effort. The only ones who were willing to bite the bullet were NK Bežigrad, where they started the story with the new Olimpija from the lowest – the fifth league.

The path was difficult, as there were some who did not want to acknowledge the moral succession of our club at the start. Then came the friendly match with Maribor in Ljubljana, where a fight broke out in the Wagon pub before the match. Due to surprise, numerical inferiority and lack of weapons compared to them, we can attribute three points to our athletes. However, it all came back to them at the stadium itself, where they simulated an invasion of our sector, and left the stadium with bloodied faces.

The highlight of the first season was the now legendary Green Friday against Belinka, when almost 600 of us gathered in the sector. 95 torches, numerous choreographies, fireworks directed by us and finally a celebration on the pitch really marked Slovenian football that year.

The fourth, third and second leagues were not much different from each other. Unattractive opponents without their fans. Only the annual celebrations of 1st place and promotion to a higher competition rank are worth mentioning, where we traditionally gathered in larger numbers.

This monotony was interrupted by the cup match against our eternal rival in 2007. The unusual timing (Wednesday at 2:00 p.m.) contributed to the fact that there were only 300 of us in the city on the Drava River. A few hours before the match, a conflict broke out on Lent, where the clash ended with the arrival of the police. We did not see the match at our place because the police evacuated our sector.

This period of ours is also marked by the new instant Ljubljana football club, which never gained the trust of the people, which is why it regularly happened that Olimpija had more spectators at a 3rd league match than its self-proclaimed rival in European matches. Its story is almost complete today.

Great successes came in the first season of the EBEL league, which we accepted with reservations. Mainly because of the status of the Austrian national championship and the unequal position of clubs that are not from Austria. And this really showed itself a few years later. In the first season, we won second place, and the Dragons did an excellent job on the road in Klagenfurt and Salzburg where we supported our hockey team Olimpija. In the second season, a historic visit to Jesenice followed, with 320 of us crammed onto the train and later into the dilapidated hall, and even before that, the local police at the local train station showed a little bit of what it means when real fans come to your village.

The stagnation in basketball continued. The ice hall, apart from small flashes, did not bring any progress in basketball. The club is sinking more and more into mediocrity, and we are still trying to cheer it on in this difficult situation.

Relegation to the first league finally brought some revival to our group's activities. Visits to legendary venues were again expected, which even the older members had not seen for several years. The first season was more considered a kind of warm-up and adaptation to the highest level of competition, also because at that time Olimpija was still based in the athletic ŽAK, where there were no opportunities for fan excesses. The first away game in Maribor was promising, but the well-packed train at Tezno was reversed for some unknown reason. The official report was that we were destroying our own train, but even a short walk with a camera in hand across the train proved otherwise. Obviously, we would have been too good on this away game.

The second season in the first league, i.e. 2010/2011, was marked by one of the major milestones of our group and also of Ljubljana (not to mention Slovenian) football in general. We finally got a new stadium! Already in the opening match with Koper, we filled our new home, Sever, nicely, and we continued our good performances against smaller clubs. Above all, the new range of our group was shown by the two home derbies, where we were finally able to show our full strength. Even before the opening of the new stadium, we also appeared in European competitions after many years. Well, considering that our first and only opponent was Široki Brijeg, we didn't experience any Europe, but we had a fun "European" tour to Herzegovina, where a bus of Dragons went. This season there were also some frictions with the club's management, as a result we attended a few matches in an unorganized manner in the main stand, but the return to the North was quick.

The third season in the first football league began with the 100th anniversary of football in Ljubljana and a match with Partizan, where we filled the North nicely. This time we saw a little more of Europe, we started again with Široki Brijeg, this time a little more of us set off on the journey than before, and various expeditions also visited different parts of this very interesting country the day before. What followed was the most massive football European tour, to Vienna. The morning team broke all records, and the final number in the stands stopped somewhere around 250, and the cheering was like a Huronian, as if there were at least one more of us. The derbies were also excellent. On the away match, 400 dragons filled the away sector nicely, and on the last home derby, the record of the North was broken, as many as 1200 Dragons supported their club!

In the fourth season in the first football league, we carried out some crazy away matches. We were in Luxembourg, and then we were eliminated against Tromso. After an excellent series, 12 matches without defeat, we organized the biggest away match in our history to Maribor, where we went by two trains. Mile Ačimovič left the club after the end of this season, and everything started to collapse like a house of cards. Nevertheless, we represented our colors well and with quality in Slovenian stadiums.

We started the 2013-2014 season with optimism. We beat Žilina at home with euphoria and were expecting a premier appearance in the third preliminary round of the Europa League. More than 150 of us went to Žilina. We were eliminated from the cup due to scared players, the season also started disastrously, with high losses, in the championship. A really nice gift for our 25th anniversary.

The events marking the 25th anniversary of our group's founding began a few weeks earlier. Ljubljana was flooded with posters and stickers, and a few days earlier we illuminated the Ljubljana Castle and the Ljubljanica. In the match against Celje, we developed one of the greatest choreographies in our own history, and then after the match we refused the players' jerseys. After the match, there was a concert in Tivoli… The rest of the season was disastrous on all levels – both on the pitch and in the stands.

At the beginning of June 2016, the Dragons succeeded in their request to change the club's management. Milan Mandarić took over the club, positive changes and the growth of the club began - and the growth of the fan group in all areas. With our performances, the football players won the championship after a long twenty-one years, Ljubljana finally breathed with Olimpija. We can say without a doubt that this season was the best in our history. We celebrated twice, first in Velenje, then in front of Nama, and when the cup was officially lifted at Kongresni trg. We started the new season with the European qualifiers against Trenčín and overpowered our opponent in all areas - except on the pitch. Olimpija was eliminated from the qualifications for the LP, and the Dragons continued to set fan standards in Slovenia.

This season, we have had quite a few good away games, of which the most memorable was the record-breaking visit to Maribor. More than ten full buses set off from Ljubljana for the derby, along with an already huge number of cars and vans. Approximately 800 Dragons took part in this mass expedition and prepared a lesson in ultras cheering in Ljudski vrt. Not long after, relations with the administration became strained, which we clearly demonstrated at the match in Domžale. In addition to a short interruption of the match, several slogans were also addressed to those responsible at the club, with which we once again warned that one cannot live on empty promises. Olimpija later lost all chances of winning the national title, but managed to qualify for the cup final. This meant only one thing - a green invasion of Koper. On the coast, we faced Domžale in the last act of the season, and the away game was remembered more for the fan frenzy that marked this record expedition than for the poor result (also thanks to the disastrous refereeing). Koper was full of our members since the morning, our songs thundered through the streets, and we headed to the stadium in one of the largest processions in the history of the group. We filled both stands behind the goal, performed an imaginative choreography and cheered Olimpija on for 90 minutes. It all ended in the third half, when a major clash with the police occurred.

The 2017/2018 season began with a quick elimination from Europe. In the Europa League qualifiers, Vaasa, a club from faraway Finland, was fatal to our progress, where, despite the huge distance of the away game, Olimpija was supported by some of our members.

Since the European story once again served up early disappointment, we focused on the domestic championship. There, things soon began to turn in a more positive direction, as Olimpija began to win a series of victories and took first place, and we stood by them every step of the way. Kranj, Kidričevo, Velenje…we played quite a few away games with good numbers and a great atmosphere among the most loyal team, which only strengthened our determination to go all the way this time – to the double crown! On the way to our desired goal, we played several excellent derbies, among which the one at the end of the season is worth mentioning. Olimpija was three rounds behind Maribor, and only a victory would ensure that the chances of winning the title were restored. Even before the match itself, we let the players know by attending training, having a big party and cheering loudly that they were facing a match in which they would fight until the last drop of sweat and blood. The train took a good number of frogs to Maribor, and there we proved something that sets us apart from everyone else. Even when the team was losing, our cheering did not wane for a second, which paid off in the best possible way. A big turnaround came with a goal in the 90th minute, followed by an unforgettable celebration in the middle of the People's Garden.

In the last round, we faced Domžale, and to win the championship we needed at least a draw. A massive "carousel" set off from Dolgi most to Domžale, but the stadium was too small for all the Olimpija fans. After a heart-stopping match with a superb fan base, we finally celebrated the championship title. After the madness in Domžale, the celebration moved to Prešernov trg, where we greeted the new Slovenian champions with a huge amount of pyrotechnics. To top it off, we needed a victory in the cup final. A title we had been waiting for for fifteen long years. In our home town of Stožice, we faced Aluminij, in a match where great choreography, loud cheering and pyrotechnics were of course not lacking. Olimpija won the final with a commanding victory, and our dream came true – we won the double crown! The joy continued late into the night right at the stadium, and the season went down in history as one of the most successful in terms of results and fans.

The summer break passed quickly and a period began that represents something special for us: around thirty years since the founding of the Green Dragons fan group. In Europe, this time, unlike previous seasons, we had a few more opportunities to prove ourselves. We Dragons cheered on our club on away trips to Baku, Belfast, Helsinki and Trnava.

The latter was, at least as far as the fans were concerned, the most attractive. In the first match in Ljubljana, despite the numerous support of the guests, we defended the colors of our city and group excellently and, with a thunderous victory in the North, clearly showed the Slovaks where they had come from. A little over 200 of us went to the return match, and after occupying the city streets and bars all day, one of the best European performances by our group followed. Excellent cheering and the visually very good image of the stands were the main topics of conversation upon returning to Ljubljana. Soon after, preparations began for the first part of the celebration of the great anniversary. On the day the group was founded, Ljubljana was on fire. In a large procession, while loudly singing our songs, which at times resembled real ecstasy, we headed to the very center of the city. There, a historic "pyro show" took place, the likes of which the Slovenian scene has never seen before. The celebration of the big day continued in the style of the greatest on Prešeren Square. It was a day that was written in golden letters in the history of the best fan group.

History continues to be written with every passing day. We have been on the fan scene for many years and there is no sign that new generations of fans will stop encouraging the players in green jerseys and defending the honor of the city of Ljubljana!