Žan Karničnik (born 18 September 1994) is a Slovenian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a defender for

Slovenian PrvaLiga The Slovenian PrvaLiga (, ), currently named Prva liga Telemach due to sponsorship reasons, also known by the abbreviation 1. SNL, is the top level of the Slovenian football league system. Contested by ten clubs, it operates on a system of prom ...

club

Celje Celje (, , ) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, third-largest city in Slovenia. It is a regional center of the traditional Slovenian region of Styria (Slovenia), Styria and the administrative seat of the City Municipality of Celje. Th ...

and the Slovenia national team.

Club career

Karničnik played for the youth teams of Slovenian club

Dravograd Dravograd (; ) is a small town in northern Slovenia, close to the border with Austria. It is the seat of the Municipality of Dravograd. It lies on the Drava River at the confluence with the Meža and the Mislinja. It is part of the traditional ...

before moving to the Styrian League side Radlje ob Dravi in 2013 to start his senior career. Before the start of the 2015–16 season, he signed with PrvaLiga club

Maribor Maribor ( , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the List of cities and towns in Slovenia, second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is the seat of the ...

, where he was part of their reserve side, Maribor B, playing in the Slovenian third division. After being a regular starter for Maribor B for two seasons, he made his first and only appearance for Maribor's first team in May 2017, starting in a 3–1 loss against

Aluminij Aluminij was a Bosnian aluminium manufacturing company with headquarters in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It operated from 1975 until 2020, when it was leased to the Israeli M.T. Abraham Group and since then has been operating as its subsidi ...

. On 26 July 2017, Karničnik joined

Slovenian Second League The Slovenian Second Football League (), also known by the abbreviation 2. SNL, is the second highest Association football, football league in Slovenia. The league was formed in 1991 and is operated by the Football Association of Slovenia. Format ...

club Mura. At the end of his first season at Mura, the club won the league and was thus promoted to the PrvaLiga. In the 2020–21 season, Karničnik made 34 appearances as he won the PrvaLiga title with Mura, the first domestic league title in the club's history. In January 2022, Karničnik moved to Bulgarian champions

Ludogorets Razgrad Professional Football Club Ludogorets 1945 (), commonly known as Ludogorets Razgrad or simply Ludogorets, is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Razgrad, which currently competes in the First Professional Football League ...

. With Ludogorets, he won the national title in the 2021–22 season, making eleven league appearances in the second part of the season. He was set to leave Ludogorets in the summer of 2022 due to a lack of playing time and was on the verge of signing for Norwegian side

Lillestrøm SK Lillestrøm Sportsklubb is a Norwegian professional football club based in the city of Lillestrøm, just outside of the capital Oslo. Lillestrøm SK is a Norwegian football club based in Lillestrøm, playing in Eliteserien. The club was founde ...

, but the transfer was cancelled as the paperwork was sent too late after the transfer window had already closed. After only five games played in the first part of the 2022–23 season, he returned to Slovenia in December 2022 and joined

on a one-year loan. After a successful loan spell, Karničnik joined Celje on a permanent basis in January 2024. With the club, he won the Slovenian First League in the 2023–24 season, appearing in 34 league games and scoring four goals.

International career

Karničnik made his debut for the Slovenia national team on 8 October 2021 in a

World Cup qualifier The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments ar ...

against

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. In June 2024, he was called up to the squad for

UEFA Euro 2024 The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2024) or simply Euro 2024, was the 17th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international Association football, football champ ...

by Slovenian coach

Matjaž Kek Matjaž Kek (born 9 September 1961) is a Slovenian professional Association football, football Manager (association football), manager and former Football player, player who is the manager of the Slovenia national football team, Slovenia nationa ...

. He played the full 90 minutes in all four Slovenia matches at the tournament, and also scored in the 1–1 group stage draw against

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Slovenia's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Karničnik goal.''

Honours

Maribor *

Slovenian First League The Slovenian PrvaLiga (, ), currently named Prva liga Telemach due to sponsorship reasons, also known by the abbreviation 1. SNL, is the top level of the Slovenian football league system. Contested by ten clubs, it operates on a system of prom ...

: 2016–17 Mura *Slovenian First League:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

: 2017–18 *

Slovenian Cup Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes, an ethno-linguistic group mainly living in Slovenia * Sl ...

: 2019–20 Ludogorets Razgrad *

Bulgarian First League The First Professional Football League (), commonly known as Parva Liga or Bulgarian First League (currently known as the efbet League for sponsorship reasons), is a professional association football league in Bulgaria and the highest level of t ...

: 2021–22 *

Bulgarian Supercup The Bulgarian Supercup () is the trophy won in a football match held between the football club that has won the Bulgarian first football division in the season that ended in the year of the match and the holder of the Bulgarian Cup at that time. ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

Celje *Slovenian First League: 2023–24 *Slovenian Cup: 2024–25 Individual *Slovenian First League Player of the Year: 2023–24 *Slovenian First League Team of the Season: 2023–24, 2024–25 *Slovenian First League Player of the Month: October 2023

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Karnicnik, Zan 1994 births Living people Footballers from Slovenj Gradec Men's association football defenders Slovenian men's footballers 21st-century Slovenian sportsmen Slovenia men's international footballers NK Maribor players NŠ Mura players PFC Ludogorets Razgrad players PFC Ludogorets Razgrad II players NK Celje players Slovenian PrvaLiga players Slovenian Second League players First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players Second Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players UEFA Euro 2024 players Slovenian expatriate men's footballers Slovenian expatriate sportspeople in Bulgaria Expatriate men's footballers in Bulgaria