“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotiv Sofia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Sofia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Ryan Bidounga.
Andrej Đurić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adil Taoui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lokomotiv Sofia asked and Spartak Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Lokomotiv Sofia know which stage they are at.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutAncelmo dropped after a run of poor form
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Botev Plovdiv waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.31 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Lokomotiv Sofia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Lokomotiv Plovdiv have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nikola Neychev. The answer from Lokomotiv Sofia has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lokomotiv Sofia asked and Malmo FF said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiv Sofia can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.72 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nikola Neychev commits to Lokomotiv Sofia for another 4 years.
Squad11 Jan 2027
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ante Aralica. 3‑1 against Spartak 1918, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ludogorets have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Sofia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Bozhidar Katsarov 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mark-Emilio Papazov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Lokomotiv Sofia know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lokomotiv Sofia has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad28 Dec 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Sofia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against CSKA 1948 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
11 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lokomotiv Sofia has to find a result from somewhere.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokomotiv Sofia may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad21 Dec 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia can tell you which week it ends in.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Krasimir Angelov after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. António Eirô 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rafael Carvalho and Lokomotiv Sofia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Adil Taoui has moved up it.
Septemvri next, and one man in the Lokomotiv Sofia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Lokomotiv Sofia will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. António Eirô 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.
Position 16, 9 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Spas Delev signs something — a contract at Lokomotiv Sofia or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Sofia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
7.51, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. António Eirô 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Krasimir Angelov to a room that had heard them before.
Position 14 and 9 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia can tell you which week it ends in.
0‑2 to Beroe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Krasimir Angelov left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lokomotiv Sofia told Erol Dost something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lokomotiv Sofia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Krasimir Angelov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
7 goals in 8 games at Hebar — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lokomotiv Sofia updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A 0‑3 beating by Cherno More was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad5 Oct 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Rosen Ivanov
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotiv Sofia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kaloyan Kostov is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Lokomotiv Sofia and Botev Vratsa, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ruca has, at Lokomotiv Sofia, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Botev Vratsa were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. António Eirô 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.
10 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Krasimir Angelov to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Georgi Minchev
The dugoutAnte Aralica asks for a word with the manager
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Lokomotiv Sofia, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Yantra moved on, Ante Aralica reports back to Lokomotiv Sofia, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Spas Delev 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Admira Wacker have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Sofia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Ancelmo is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
0‑3 to Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Botev Plovdiv waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rio Ave is saying, and nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia is enjoying the guessing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and António Eirô was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A point taken on 85 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa for Mitko Mitkov 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.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
António Eirô falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.