Slovenia: PonteSud – News Desk
Maribor, the only Slovenian football club to have played in the UEFA Champions League but last won the national championship in the 2021/22 season, are hoping to return to their former glory under a new head coach Tugberk Tanrivermis.
The Turkish coach was appointed after the club, which has won a record 16 Slovenian premier league titles, last year got a new owner in Acun Ilicali, a Turkish entrepreneur who owns the English club Hull City.
Tanrivermis, 35, succeeds former Slovenian international BoÅ¡tjan Cesar. He is two years younger than Maribor’s standout player from the previous season, Algerian right winger Hillal Soudani.
Tanrivermis has relatively limited experience managing senior teams. In his debut in such a role, he led Austrian side St. Pölten to a fourth-place finish in the Austrian second division. The majority of his coaching career has been spent working with youth categories.
Earlier he had been part of the Roma football school, where he led the U18 team to the final of the national youth championship in 2023/24 and won the Maestrelli Award for best young coach in Italy in 2022/23. During that time he worked with Jose Mourinho, from whom he says he learned a lot.
“It is not difficult to set goals for a club like Maribor. The main goal of this season is to win the national championship. If possible, we also want to win the cup,” the Turkish expert told the press as his appointment was made official on 12 June.
The club’s owner said the new coach “has exceptional passion and enthusiasm, and his ambitions are aligned with ours”. “I believe we have the right coach to take our team forward and offer a style of play that the fans will enjoy.”
Tanrivermis will be joined by Albin Sheqiri, a 31-year-old Swede with Kosovan roots, and Joao Pedro Barata Salgado, a 44-year-old Portuguese, as his closest assistants.
Cesar, a long-serving captain of the Slovenian national team and its record appearance holder with 102 caps, had been in charge of Maribor for just eight months.
He took over from Ante Šimundža in October 2024. During his tenure, Cesar guided Maribor through 28 matches, securing 15 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses.
Under his leadership, Maribor finished the season in second place behind the eternal rivals Olimpija of Ljubljana, thereby securing a spot in the second qualifying round for the UEFA Conference League.
