0‑3 to Beroe, 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.
“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.
Justin Omoregie 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Milko Tunchev after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutAntónio Eirô has become a man the manager trusts
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ante Aralica had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
A point taken on 112 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotiv Sofia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Shakhtar is saying, and nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia is enjoying the guessing.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nikola Neychev is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Sofia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angel Lyaskov 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.
Lokomotiv Sofia have made the call to Gimnasia y Esgrima. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Ante Aralica is on it.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokomotiv Sofia may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad24 May 2027
Angel Lyaskov 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.
Nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lokomotiv Sofia, another week without a signature from Tiago Sousa.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Lokomotiv Sofia and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Tiago Sousa are not good
Petar Vitanov 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vasil Sarmov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Angel Lyaskov 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.
Nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Georgi Minchev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Bozhidar Katsarov has written the date down.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Tiago Sousa are not good
“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.
Lokomotiv Sofia asked and Bahia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Angel Lyaskov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Erol Dost was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.28 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Spartak 1918 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiv Sofia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Petar Vitanov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Angel Lyaskov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Milko Tunchev to a room that had heard them before.
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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gabriel Rodrigues has just signed for Lokomotiv Sofia, and for once the answer mattered.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Angel Lyaskov 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tiago Sousa and Lokomotiv Sofia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Petar Vitanov 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Ryan Bidounga 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tiago Sousa and Lokomotiv Sofia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Milko Tunchev was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Lokomotiv Sofia dressing room was either.
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.
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 Adil Taoui is on it.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Lokomotiv Sofia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.