Filip Valenčič (born 7 January 1992) 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

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

for

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga () is a professional association football league in Finland and the highest level of the Finnish football league system. The league comprises the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agenc ...

club Jaro.

Club career

Born in

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

, Valenčič started his senior career with local side Interblock, before moving to

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 ...

side Olimpija Ljubljana in 2011. In July 2015, he signed with English side

Notts County Notts County Football Club is a professional association football, football club in Nottingham, England, which competes in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of Football in England, English football, following promotion and relegation, promotion ...

. He scored his first goal for the club against

Crawley Town Crawley Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Crawley, West Sussex, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded in 1896 as Crawley Foo ...

in a 1–0 win in January 2016. Following his short spell in England, he signed with Palloseura Kemi Kings ahead of their first season in the

, the top flight of Finnish football. In 2017, he moved to HJK. In his first campaign with HJK, he finished as the league's joint second top-scorer with 15 goals (7 after his move from PS Kemi), and helped his team winning their record 28th league title. He also went on to win the league's player of the season award at the league's end of year gala on 3 November 2017. After two successful seasons with HJK, Valenčič signed a deal with Stabæk in 2018 on a three-year contract. He would go on to only play 124 minutes during the

2018 Eliteserien The 2018 Eliteserien was the 74th completed season of top-tier football in Norway. This was second season of Eliteserien as rebranding from Tippeligaen. The season began on 11 March and ended 24 November 2018, not including play-off matches. Fixt ...

campaign, scoring no goals. On 12 February 2019, he joined

Inter Turku Football Club International Turku, commonly referred to as Inter Turku () and colloquially known as Inter, is a Finnish professional football club based in Turku that competes in the Veikkausliiga, the top flight of Finnish Football. Founded i ...

on loan for the

2019 Veikkausliiga The 2019 Veikkausliiga was the 89th season of top-tier football in Finland. Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi were the defending champions. KuPS won the title. New league format Veikkausliiga adopted a new league format for the 2019 season. Each team play ...

season. He finished the campaign as the league's top scorer with 16 goals as the club finished in second place, securing a spot in the first qualifying round of the

2020–21 UEFA Europa League The 2020–21 UEFA Europa League was the 50th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 12th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. Villarreal defeated Manchester United i ...

. In June 2022, Valenčič signed for

KuPS Kuopion Palloseura, commonly referred to as KuPS, is a Finnish professional football club based in Kuopio. KuPS competes in Veikkausliiga, the top flight of Finnish football. The team plays its home matches at Kuopio Football Stadium. KuPS ha ...

. On 21 March 2024, over a month after making two league cup appearances for PK-35, he joined Polish third-tier club

Olimpia Grudziądz Olimpia Grudziądz is a Polish football club from Grudziądz. The club was formed on 30 June 1923. Currently, Olimpia plays in the II liga, following promotion in the 2022–23 season. On 1 March 2022, thanks to defeating Wisła Kraków in a ...

on a deal until the end of the season. On 28 February 2025, after a trial period, Valenčič officially joined newly promoted Veikkausliiga club Jaro.

International career

Valenčič has represented Slovenia at various youth levels. In 2019, it was reported that he has considering switching allegiances and taking Finnish citizenship so that he could represent

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

on the international stage.

Career statistics

Honours

HJK *

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup (; ) is Finland's main national cup competition in football. This yearly competition is open for all member clubs of the FA of Finland and has been played since 1955. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League ...

: 2016–17 Individual *Veikkausliiga Player of the Month: June 2017, June 2021 *Veikkausliiga Player of the Year:

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

*Veikkausliiga Team of the Year:

*Veikkausliiga Forward of the Year:

*Veikkausliiga Top Goalscorer: 2019 *Finnish Cup Top Goalscorer: 2017–18

References

External links