NK Maribor in European football

Nogometni klub Maribor, also simply known as NK Maribor, is a Slovenian professional football club based in Maribor. The club have participated in 36 editions of the club competitions governed by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the chief authority for football across Europe. These include 15 seasons in the UEFA Champions League, 15 seasons in the UEFA Cup and Europa League, one season in the UEFA Europa Conference League, two seasons in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and three seasons in the UEFA Intertoto Cup. Counting all of the 171 games the side have played in European competitions since their first entry into the Mitropa Cup in the 1970–71 season, the team's record stands at 63 wins, 41 draws, and 67 defeats as of match played 29 July 2021. The club's most recent participation in a continental competition was in the 2021–22 season, when they played in the qualifying rounds of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League.

Maribor's 10–0 victory over Norma Tallinn of Estonia in the 1994–95 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup is the club's most decisive win in European competitions, while the team's heaviest defeat is 9–1, against the Dutch club Ajax in the 1997–98 UEFA Cup. With 94 caps, Marcos Tavares has appeared in the most UEFA matches for Maribor; Tavares has also scored the most goals with 31.

As of the 2021–22 season, Maribor is the only Slovenian club that has managed to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, and one of five clubs from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who have participated in the group stages of the competition since the breakup of the country in 1992. Maribor won their only European honour in 2006, when they defeated Villarreal in the third round of the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup, becoming one of the eleven co-winners of the competition.

History

Yugoslav period: 1960–1991

Before the independence of Slovenia in 1991, Maribor competed in the Yugoslav football league system.