Marked for Marto Boychev
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Lachezar Ivanov could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.44
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.44, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and CSKA 1948 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Oskar Pietuszewski, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.93
A mark of 7.93 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $20.7K — a club that wants Georgi Terziev enough to be asked twice.
Market24 Aug 2026
Septemvri pay $250.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$19.0K was the most the club would pay and Ludogorets were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Berna 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 targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. FC Nantes have kept their man, and CSKA 1948 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
Etar ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Faiz Mattoir beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 25. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: FC Nantes keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Septemvri's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Septemvri has to find a result from somewhere.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Septemvri asked and Slavia Sofia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
400 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Match22 Aug 2026
No clean sheets in sight for Septemvri
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑2 to CSKA Sofia, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Martin Hristov
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market17 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Septemvri waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CSKA 1948 is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Dragan Grivić has left for Dunav Ruse in a $1.6M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$18.0K on the table at Ludogorets. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A row about effort at CSKA 1948
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yohann Magnin, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Septemvri did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with CSKA 1948, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Stipe Vulikić 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Preslav Georgiev has left for Dunav Ruse in a $92.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑2 to Levski, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolas Fontaine, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Aug 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 Nikolay Popov to a room that had heard them before.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
FC Nantes 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.86, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and CSKA 1948 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marto Boychev, 18, steals the show — 8.14
Marked 8.14 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Diego Medina goes up and wins it — 7.74
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.74 for the rest of it.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Dragan Grivić again, and this time the name on the line is Dunav Ruse. CSKA 1948 are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
André Hoffmann and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match1 Aug 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA 1948 and Dobrudzha in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match1 Aug 2026
Three points for CSKA 1948, 4‑2 the final word against Dobrudzha in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.