Olympia is otherwise a small place in the Peloponnese, where the ancient Greeks organized the Olympic Games between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD. The place also gave its name to the modern Olympic Games and, of course, to some sports clubs, the most famous of which are the Greek Olympiakos and the Paraguayan Olimpia Asunción. But what about in our country?

In 1955, at a time when the club was called Odred, a sports association was founded at the University of Ljubljana as an umbrella organization for student sports activities. On the suggestion of one of the founding members, Dušan Brglez, the new association was named Olympia.

A few years later, when the Bežigrad football club left the Odred sports association and briefly changed its name to the generic all-Slovenian Triglav, the Academic Sports Association was already the strongest and best-organized sports organization in Ljubljana. At the end of 1961, the long-planned merger of Triglav with AŠD Olimpija finally materialized, and the football club received the name it still bears today. In the spring part of the 1961/62 season, the club thus started competing as Olimpija.

The club played its first official match under the new name on March 25, 1962, in Nova Gorica. A crowd of 2,500 spectators gathered, who, despite good playing conditions, witnessed an average football performance. Olimpija secured a routine victory with goals from Živko Velkavrh and Danilo Brezigar. In that season, Olimpija won first place in the Slovenian National League (SNL) and returned to the Second Federal League, climbing to the highest tier of competition within a few years. From 1965 onwards, the name Olimpija became synonymous with Slovenian football.