Marked for Erick Marcus
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
9 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Dobrudzha, and it could have been more.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The match ball belongs to Rwan Cruz, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Son 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 Ludogorets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A masterclass from Rwan Cruz
Marked 9.93 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A move Fábio Ferreira would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Fábio Ferreira is living that version at Ludogorets, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Ludogorets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Hendrik Bonmann 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Sep 2026
CSKA 1948 will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Ludogorets were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match26 Sep 2026
7 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Hendrik Bonmann 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Ludogorets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Stanić 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 terraces28 Sep 2026
At 22 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
One of those days for Rwan Cruz
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.49, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Sep 2026
100 appearances for Rwan Cruz
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Bernard Tekpetey takes the afternoon — 8.64
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bernard Tekpetey provided it, and the 8.64 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match19 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Ludogorets have 6 straight wins of it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Petar Stanić beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Son 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Ludogorets
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hendrik Bonmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
One of those days for Rwan Cruz
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.17, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Erick Marcus, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Yasen Milanov could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Erick Marcus beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 31. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Ferencvaros for Caio Vidal 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Maks Ebong arrives at Ludogorets in a $3.3M statement of intent
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Ludogorets have paid $3.3M for Maks Ebong, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Arda wanted more than $1.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ludogorets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
As if he never left: Ilker Budinov returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Ilker Budinov is a Ludogorets player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ilker Budinov gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ilker Budinov has just signed for Ludogorets, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Ludogorets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Stanić 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.