Marked for Rodrigo Moledo
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Apr 2027
Georgi Babaliev damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Aleksandar Todorov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Minyor Pernik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marsel Bibishkov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom19 Apr 2027
117% of the income goes out in wages at Minyor Pernik
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Georgi Dimitrov, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Nobody at Minyor Pernik will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market19 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Minyor Pernik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Apr 2027
Georgi Babaliev damages knee ligaments — 52 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 52 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Rodrigo Moledo, 39, rolls back the years — 8.05
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Apr 2027
At 20, Michal Kroupa is already the best thing here
An average of 7.27 in a first team he is several years too young for. Minyor Pernik have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Deyan Lozev 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Stanislav Nistorov has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Aleksandar Todorov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Georgi Atanasov
“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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Danail Nedelev kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Preslav Yordanov
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Minyor Pernik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match28 Dec 2026
Position 2 and 34 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Minyor Pernik may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Rodrigo Moledo pulls a muscle — 16 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Match26 Dec 2026
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match26 Dec 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Minyor Pernik did not have in the autumn.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Deyan Lozev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Deyan Lozev 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 Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
Minyor Pernik make home a hard place to visit
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Market9 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Minyor Pernik, another week without a signature from Aleksandar Georgiev.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Minyor Pernik are still strangers to each other
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
7.60, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Minyor Pernik had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Anastas Pemperski, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Stanislav Nistorov is on it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Danail Nedelev was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Minyor Pernik dressing room was either.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match28 Oct 2026
Lokomotiv Plovdiv go through and Minyor Pernik go home, 1‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Michal Kroupa, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.21
A mark of 8.21 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Rodrigo Moledo commits to Minyor Pernik for another 2 years.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Michal Kroupa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The terraces2 Nov 2026
At 19 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Michal Kroupa’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Minyor Pernik.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages swallow 129% of the Minyor Pernik income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.