Nõmme Kalju FC
Also written as Kalju.
The club
Nõmme Kalju were founded in 1923 in the Nõmme district of Tallinn, Estonia. Their traditional home is Hiiu Stadium, which opened in 1936; the club was forced away from it for renovation work and played home matches at other grounds around Tallinn for four seasons before returning to Hiiu Stadium in May 2024. Capacity is listed at 570. The club's colours were traditionally black and white, but Kalju adopted pink in the 2000s and are nicknamed the Pink Panthers as a result. The manager is Nikita Andreev.
The feed calls them "Kalju"; the full name is Nõmme Kalju. This is not FC Nõmme United, a separate club also based in the Nõmme district of Tallinn and a local rival, the two having first met competitively on 17 March 2024. It is also not the other leading Estonian clubs FC Flora Tallinn, against whom Kalju contest the so-called Railway Derby because the two clubs' grounds are connected by rail, or FCI Levadia Tallinn, both of which are stronger historically in Estonian football and easy to conflate with Kalju for anyone unfamiliar with the Meistriliiga.
Recent seasons
Kalju finished fourth in the Meistriliiga in 2021 with 45 points and fourth again in 2022 with 65. They were fifth in 2023 with 49 points, then improved sharply to second in 2024 with 72 points from 36 matches, 21 wins, 9 draws and 6 losses, with Alex Matthias Tamm winning the league's top scorer award on 28 goals. In 2025 they finished third with 74 points.
Honours and landmarks
Kalju have won the Meistriliiga twice, in 2012 and 2018. They have won the Estonian Cup twice, in 2014/15 and 2024/25, and the Estonian Super Cup twice, in 2019 and 2026.
Notable scorelines
Kalju's heaviest European defeat found in the sources read here is a 2-10 aggregate loss to Viktoria Plzeň in the 2013/14 Champions League third qualifying round, having beaten HJK of Finland 2-1 in the previous round. They also lost 0-7 away to Celtic in the 2019/20 Champions League second qualifying round, after eliminating Shkëndija of North Macedonia on away goals in the first round. Their best European results include a 5-3 aggregate win over Trakai of Lithuania in 2016/17 and a penalty shoot-out win over Maccabi Haifa the same year before Osmanlıspor eliminated them 0-3 in the third qualifying round. The club's biggest and heaviest results in Estonian domestic football were not established from the sources read here.
European record
Kalju have entered European qualifying most years since 2009/10, when they lost 1-2 on aggregate to Dinaburg of Latvia. Through the 2010s they were eliminated early most seasons: Honka, Khazar Lankaran, Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Lech Poznań, Vaduz, Videoton, Stjarnan, F91 Dudelange and Mura all knocked them out at various qualifying stages. Their best run came in 2016/17, beating Trakai and Maccabi Haifa before losing to Osmanlıspor in the third qualifying round. In 2019/20 they took Shkëndija out on away goals before Celtic beat them 7-0 on aggregate in the Champions League, and were also eliminated by F91 Dudelange in the Europa League that season. In 2025/26 they beat Partizani Tirana of Albania 2-1 before losing to St Patrick's Athletic of the Republic of Ireland 2-3 on aggregate in Conference League qualifying.
Head-to-head notes
Kalju's head-to-head record against Flora Tallinn in the Railway Derby, and against Levadia Tallinn, was not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Kalju entered the 2026/27 Conference League qualifying rounds and beat Linfield of Northern Ireland in the first round, 3-2 on aggregate after winning the first leg 1-0 and drawing the second 2-2. They were eliminated in the second qualifying round by Shelbourne of the Republic of Ireland, 4-6 on aggregate after a 2-1 first leg and a 2-5 second leg. Exact dates, venues and goalscorers for both ties, along with Kalju's position in the 2026 Meistriliiga table, were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%B5mme_Kalju_FC
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.