The Eternal derby of Slovenian football, simply known as the Eternal derby (Slovene: Večni derbi) or Slovenian derby (Slovene: Slovenski derbi) was a major football rivalry between NK Maribor and NK Olimpija, which was dissolved in 2004. Although the old Olimpija was officially dissolved at the end of 2004 it was still allowed to finish the 2004–05 season, which was at the time already in progress.
On 2 March 2005 a new club was established,[1][2] under the name NK Bežigrad, retaining Olimpija's fans, colours and most of the youth team players. NK Bežigrad later changed its name twice. First to NK Olimpija Bežigrad and finally to NK Olimpija Ljubljana. Although the board of the newly established club and its fans see the team as the spiritual continuation of the old club, they are not regarded as the legal successors of the old NK Olimpija and are not entitled to claim the honours won by the defunct club.[3][4]
However, because the new Olimpija is supported by most of the fans of the previous Olimpija, including their ultras group the Green Dragons who has a long standing rivalry with Maribor's own ultras group Viole Maribor, many see the matches between Maribor and the new club as the continuation of the rivalry and refer to it by the same name.[5][6] However, there are many fans, either the ones from Maribor or the ones from Ljubljana, that does not share the same view and does not share similar beliefs,[7][8][9] including part of the media.[10][11] The overall statistics are tracked separately by the Football Association of Slovenia and the Association of 1. SNL.[4][12]