Kristiyan Balov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Dobrudzha training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Malick Fall 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.
Level with 86 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Dobrudzha had all but put away. Arda will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It needed Valdu Té to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Arda, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout2 Nov 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.” Yordan Nedyalkov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Botev Plovdiv will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Tekio 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. André Sarim 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.
A 1‑0 win over Botev Plovdiv, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Yordan Nedyalkov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dobrudzha this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dobrudzha know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Malick Fall was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Stefan Smarkalev’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Dobrudzha needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dobrudzha know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Dobrudzha close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 2 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Genoa have kept their man, and Dobrudzha go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Diogo Ressurreição has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Stefan Smarkalev has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dobrudzha have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kristiyan Balov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Dobrudzha needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.