These kinds of stories often have a special value. When something that started modestly begins to take on a more substantial shape, when hard work becomes visible and the quality of the work is recognized by others, it is important to offer additional support and encouragement.

Especially when at the heart of it all is a love of sport, children, and their development – not only as future footballers, but also as young people who learn about friendship, respect, responsibility, and belonging to a community through sport.

Today, we’re taking you to Slovenia, where we’re introducing you to just such a story. The story of ŠD Dobrova – NK Dolomiti Frogs, a small club in size, but big in ambition, enthusiasm, and its desire to improve.

A club that has managed to take important steps in a relatively short time, but has no intention of resting on its achievements to date; instead, it continues to build its future.

This is not just the story of one football club. It is also a reminder that a high-quality sporting environment can be built from the ground up, step by step, with the right people and genuine dedication.

So, we’ll hand over to our interviewee, Mr. Žan Ošlak, president of ŠD Dobrova – NK Dolomiti Frogs, who will tell us how it all began, what challenges the club has faced, and what its plans for the future are.

You may recognize yourself in some parts of this story, you may find confirmation in it that you’re on the right track, or perhaps it will inspire you to take the first step toward realizing one of your footballing ideas. After all, every great story had to start somewhere – and the most beautiful ones are often the ones that begin with love.

“My name is Žan Ošlak, and I currently serve as coach and president of Športno društvo Dobrova – NK Dolomiti Frogs in Slovenia, where I started and founded my own football school last year.

Sport has always been an important part of my life. I played football actively for twelve years, then spent 15 years in the Slovenian Armed Forces, where I gained valuable life experience, discipline, a sense of responsibility, and the ability to perform in demanding circumstances.

After my military career ended, I decided to direct my experience, knowledge, and energy toward football, especially working with children and young athletes.

Over the years, I have continued to develop my expertise in football training, physical conditioning, and youth player development through various international programs and courses, including UEFA and FC Barcelona Universitas courses, as well as programs in speed, strength, agility, flexibility, and sports nutrition.

I have had the opportunity to work with children of different ages and abilities, both in Slovenia and abroad. I would particularly highlight my experience in the Caribbean and Georgia, where I attended professional development courses in working with young people, as well as coaching programs.

Today, my greatest professional challenge and goal is the development of NK Dolomiti Frogs. I want to build a club that will be recognized not just for its results, but above all for the quality of its work, its organization, its approach to children, its sportsmanship, and the values we pass on to new generations.

For me, results are never the top priority. The child comes first, along with their individual development, progress, and growing-up years. I believe we need to understand that every child has their own pace of development, abilities, and path.

Our role as coaches is not to create pressure around results, but to provide every child with a high-quality environment where they can progress, develop their potential, and fall in love with sport.

I believe a football club should be much more than just a place where children train and play football. It should be an environment where children develop character, confidence, responsibility, friendships, and a love of sport.

My philosophy is simple: I don’t want to develop only good footballers, but above all, good people. Results will come as a consequence of quality work, patience, dedication, and the right values.”

The idea of establishing my own football school didn’t come about overnight. In fact, I had been developing it in my mind for a long time before it became a concrete project.

I spent the first three months thinking about the club’s identity – its logo, colors, symbols, and all the details that would represent what I wanted the club to become. Nothing was left to chance.

Every element of our logo has its own meaning and, in some way, represents a part of me, my life journey, my experiences, and the values I want to pass on to the club.

We started our first training sessions and officially began operating in April 2025, with just 15 players at the time. Children started joining us in the very first days, and the story spread very quickly. I didn’t want aggressive marketing or to build a large club quickly.

I wanted us to grow gradually, for the quality of our work to be our best advertisement, and for people to recognize for themselves what we were building. Word-of-mouth recommendations, parents’ trust, and the children’s happiness meant a great deal to us.

Today, we have grown into a community of around 150 members, which brings me great satisfaction, but also a sense of responsibility.

It all began as a dream and a desire, but over time it grew into a concrete goal. I have a habit of imagining different scenarios in advance, developing ideas, and trying to consider every possibility. But once I make a decision and take something on, I devote myself to it completely. I like to say that I see things through to the end and give every project 100% of my energy and dedication.

The idea of establishing the club was entirely my own. Before that, I had worked for two years as one of the head coaches at another club. It is a club that continues to achieve excellent results today, which I would particularly like to emphasize.

However, over time, I realized that I no longer felt at home in that kind of environment, as I had a different vision for the development of football, working with children, and organizing a football school.

I felt that the time had come to try to turn my vision into reality.

The first person to support my idea without hesitation was my partner, who has stood by me from the very beginning. Then my friends also showed their support by coming to the first training sessions with their children and helping me get started.

Their trust meant a great deal to me, because they were part of the first steps in this story. When I look at how far we have come from those initial 15 players, I can say that I’m proud.

But for me, this story is far from over. On the contrary, I believe we are only just getting started.

Our beginnings were far from ideal. It all started on an overgrown grass pitch between Šiška and Mostec, where I practically started from scratch.

I maintained the pitch myself, mowed the grass, and looked after the space to provide the children with basic training conditions. At first, I even mowed the grass by hand, until a friend helped us get a ride-on mower through a sponsorship donation.

It may seem like a small thing to some, but it meant a great deal to me at the time, because it was another step forward and proof that people believed in what we were building.

Beginnings are never easy, but I like a challenge. I never expected everything to happen overnight. I believed the club needed to grow in a healthy, gradual way and at its own natural pace.

I didn’t want us to take on major commitments before we were ready to fulfill them. The responsibility to the children, parents, coaches, and the entire community is great, and I was aware of that from day one.

I believe it is far more important to lay solid foundations than to quickly build something we won’t be able to maintain to a high standard later on. That’s why we approached each next step thoughtfully, in line with our capabilities and the club’s long-term vision.

As our story began to take shape, an important call soon came. A friend of mine, who is very active in the football community, contacted me and invited me to discuss the possibility of connecting and merging with a club located just five minutes from where we were training at the time.

The idea was to join forces, bring together people, infrastructure, and football expertise, and create better conditions for the continued development of the children and the club.

That call opened a new chapter in our story and offered the possibility for a project that had begun as my personal idea to gain an even broader perspective.

Today, we have around 140 children, from the U8 to U17 age groups, as well as a veterans’ team.

For me, the greatest success is that the children come to training four times a week, not because they have to, but because they genuinely want to and enjoy football.

I’m proud of the relationships we are building among them, their mutual respect, their friendships, and their desire to be better at every training session than they were the day before. These values mean far more to me than any result.

Still, if I had to single out one special moment, I would definitely choose the Cankar Tournament in Vrhnika on May 31, 2026, when we finished in second place.

Second place may not seem like anything special to some people, but it meant much more to us. At the beginning, there were many defeats, and a lot of learning, adapting, building connections, and being patient.

I often said that every new story needs time, and that real results cannot be expected overnight. In a way, that day confirmed that everything we had been doing was worthwhile.

It may sound funny to some, but there were tears of joy that day. Behind that result were many sacrifices, a great deal of time and energy, and my own personal financial resources.

I had also made the decision to leave a successful military career and take an entirely different path, full of uncertainty but also driven by an enormous desire to bring my vision to life.

At that moment, I felt that all the hard work, sacrifices, and everything I had invested had somehow paid off. Those weren’t tears over second place, but over everything that stood behind it.

They were for the children, their progress, their sense of togetherness, and the fact that from a small idea, we had managed to create something so many people believe in today.

That is why this tournament will never be just a sporting result for me. It will remain one of the most beautiful moments since our story began.

The idea of organizing our own tournament had been there from the very beginning, but I always believed that we first needed to build a solid foundation for such a step. My principle is that I don’t want to skip steps.

First, we need to provide the children with high-quality working conditions, suitable facilities, and everything they need for their daily training. Only then can we think about larger projects and organizing events.

Last year, we got an artificial turf pitch, and this year, new changing rooms. Today, we have truly excellent conditions for our work – we have two full-size football pitches, a medium-sized and a smaller artificial turf pitch, as well as a training area for developing various football and movement skills.

Once we had managed to secure such facilities, we began thinking more seriously about the next step – organizing our own tournament.

I want our tournament to be more than just a sporting competition. I want it to be an event that brings together children, coaches, parents, and clubs, creates new friendships, and promotes the right sporting values.

I believe organizing a tournament is a natural next step in our club’s development. I hope that, in the future, our tournament will become a recognized event bringing together clubs, children, and sporting friends from different communities.

I would certainly like us to have a proper discussion about opportunities for cooperation next year, exchange ideas, and explore how we can create something high-quality and long-lasting together.

We are open to partnerships and joint projects, because I believe that bringing people and clubs together can do a lot of good, especially for children and their sporting development.

I would certainly like us to have a proper discussion about opportunities for cooperation next year. I want to connect our club with other clubs, both in Slovenia and abroad, and bring as many foreign teams as possible to our pitches.

I would like us to create a truly international football environment together, where children have the opportunity to meet peers from other countries, make new friends, exchange experiences, and experience football in a special way.

I believe our club and the facilities we have built have excellent potential for events like these.

That’s why I would see this discussion as the first step toward concrete connections and future cooperation. I believe we can create something wonderful, high-quality, and well-recognized together, especially for the benefit of children and football.

It is particularly important to us that, in the future, we also bring teams from abroad to our pitches, because we want to create a truly international football environment. We have excellent facilities, two full-size pitches, artificial turf pitches, a training area, and new changing rooms, so we believe we have a strong foundation for organizing events of this kind.

A new development and our long-term goal is to expand cooperation with other clubs, bring different football communities together, and create tournaments that children will remember fondly. Results are an important part of sport, but we want to emphasize the experience, friendship, fair play, and love of football.

I believe that working with AFT and including our tournament in its system would represent a very important step in our club’s continued development.

Above all, it would allow us to gain greater international recognition, connect with clubs from different countries, and bring teams to our pitches that we might not otherwise have the opportunity to host.

It is very important to us that children have the opportunity to experience different football environments, play against new opponents, gain international experience, and make friendships that go beyond the borders of their clubs and countries.

I also see working with AFT as an opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience, improve the organization of tournaments, and raise the overall quality of the event. We don’t want to remain just a local football story.

Our goal is to gradually build a tournament that will be recognized beyond Slovenia’s borders, too.

I believe that together we can create an excellent platform for developing young footballers, connecting clubs, and promoting the right sporting values.

For me, the greatest success would be to host teams from different European countries and beyond at our pitches one day, to hear more languages, and to see the pitches full of children, supporters, and positive football energy.

That is the kind of football atmosphere I want to build, and I believe that working with AFT can help us make this vision a reality.

I believe that platforms and tournament networks like these play a very important role in the development of children’s football, as they connect clubs, coaches, children, and different football communities.

This year, thanks to the AFT tournament in Piran, we made excellent connections with two clubs. This experience is particularly close to my heart, because it reaffirmed something I genuinely believe in: I don’t see other clubs as competition, but as an opportunity for us to develop together.

I believe football should not stop at the boundaries of a single club. We need to work together and exchange experiences, ideas, and knowledge, because that way we can all become better. Ultimately, it is the children who benefit most from this kind of cooperation.

At tournaments like these, children meet new friends, discover different styles of play and new football environments, and learn to deal with wins and losses. At the same time, coaches and clubs also have the opportunity to learn something new and improve their work.

I believe the future of children’s football lies in connection, cooperation, and creating shared opportunities for development. If we can help each other become better, then we all benefit.”