Marked for Nicholas Belloni
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Mar 2032
16 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match20 Mar 2032
3 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.
Squad22 Mar 2032
Dominik Sarga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match20 Mar 2032
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dominik Sarga. 1‑0 against Belasitsa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad22 Mar 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Radoslav Karamanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom22 Mar 2032
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.
Player ratings22 Mar 2032
Nobody on the pitch touched Dominik Sarga
7.56, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout22 Mar 2032
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.” Davide Pellegrini kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout22 Mar 2032
The team sheet said everything about Denis Kirashki
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 Denis Kirashki.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jan 2032
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market5 Jan 2032
“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 Gorna Oryahovitsa can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Transfer targets5 Jan 2032
Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa asked and Levski said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match3 Jan 2032
Dominik Sarga scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Sevlievo, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Lucas Macedo 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 dugout5 Jan 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lucas Macedo, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Jun 2031
Júnior Franco damages knee ligaments — 85 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
Boardroom16 Jun 2031
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa is running low.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Júnior Franco and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
$900.00 on the table at Fratria. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
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.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Denis Kirashki 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.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
Septemvri have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad16 Jun 2031
5 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 May 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Júnior Franco
128 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom5 May 2031
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. the manager has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The dugout5 May 2031
“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.
Squad5 May 2031
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 Gorna Oryahovitsa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 May 2031
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad5 May 2031
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ognyan Vladimirov 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 dugout5 May 2031
“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 Gorna Oryahovitsa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market5 May 2031
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.