Marked for Baboucarr Faal
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Feb 2027
CSKA Sofia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and CSKA 1948 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match30 Jan 2027
5 matches without a win for CSKA 1948
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around CSKA 1948 are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Berna runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market1 Feb 2027
Add another name to the list: Botev Plovdiv have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juanmi Carrión. The answer from CSKA 1948 has not changed — yet.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad1 Feb 2027
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
7.04, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. CSKA 1948 had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match14 Dec 2026
CSKA 1948 are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 42 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match12 Dec 2026
CSKA 1948 cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Yohann Magnin was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match12 Dec 2026
CSKA 1948 are at home on the road
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Match12 Dec 2026
A 1‑0 win over Lokomotiv Sofia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Diego Medina
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Marked 7.84. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Lechia for Karel Spáčil was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Sampson Dweh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Daniel Vašulín’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Viktoria Plzen.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Matěj Vydra
A mark of 7.77, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Viktoria Plzen have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The plan did not have a place for Václav Jemelka
Nobody at Viktoria Plzen is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
396 appearances across 8 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Viktoria Plzen know what they have.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Lechia have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Karel Spáčil. The answer from Viktoria Plzen has not changed — yet.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Viktoria Plzen heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Matěj Vydra and Viktoria Plzen agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Sampson Dweh in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viktoria Plzen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ricardinho wants continental football; whether Viktoria Plzen can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Daniel Vašulín did the work nobody counts — 6.57
13 combined actions and 6.57. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.