Marked for Arron Bowman
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad27 Aug 2035
Yohann Magnin 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.
Player ratings27 Aug 2035
23 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Match25 Aug 2035
CSKA 1948 keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Squad27 Aug 2035
The medical room confirms 50 days on the sidelines for Ivaylo Tsvetanov, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Match25 Aug 2035
Three points for CSKA 1948, 1‑0 the final word against Slavia Sofia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad27 Aug 2035
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elton Hoxha 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.
Squad27 Aug 2035
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings27 Aug 2035
Defensive actions: 14, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Market27 Aug 2035
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA 1948 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Jan 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Both jobs done by Luann — 6.02
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 14 actions, 6.02, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Jan 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Arron Bowman and CSKA 1948 agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match6 Jan 2035
Ludogorets left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad8 Jan 2035
The manager makes an example of Diego Medina
“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.
Player ratings8 Jan 2035
A performance of 8.25 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Boardroom8 Jan 2035
Wages eat 90% of everything CSKA 1948 earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Ognjen Gašević named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ognjen Gašević is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings16 Oct 2034
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Oct 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Diego Medina gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings16 Oct 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.40, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match14 Oct 2034
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Ognjen Gašević has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at CSKA 1948 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Aug 2034
Taylan Özgün breaks a bone — 48 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad14 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Aug 2034
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings14 Aug 2034
Marked 9.17 — 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.
Match12 Aug 2034
Cherno More made CSKA 1948 work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Aug 2034
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jules Meyer commits to CSKA 1948 for another 2 years.
Squad14 Aug 2034
The manager makes an example of Arron Bowman
“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.
Market14 Aug 2034
René Schumacher is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at CSKA 1948 has been clear about where René Schumacher stands, which is more than many ever get.
Player ratings14 Aug 2034
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Aug 2034
Taylan Özgün breaks a bone — 55 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Aug 2034
Patrick Luan takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
Patrick Luan, 35, rolls back the years — 8.65
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.65 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad7 Aug 2034
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.
Match5 Aug 2034
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA 1948 and Botev Vratsa in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match5 Aug 2034
Botev Vratsa made CSKA 1948 work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
Marked 8.16 — 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.
Player ratings7 Aug 2034
Marked 8.14 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match21 Jan 2034
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Septemvri, and it could have been more.
Player ratings23 Jan 2034
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.63, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad23 Jan 2034
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market23 Jan 2034
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Jan 2034
Borislav Tsonev 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.
Squad23 Jan 2034
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ognjen Gašević 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 terraces23 Jan 2034
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 ratings23 Jan 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.66, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings23 Jan 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Dec 2033
Yohann Magnin 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.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Ognjen Gašević 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.
Match17 Dec 2033
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings19 Dec 2033
Ninety minutes of Andrés Molinas at his very best
Marked 8.22. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at CSKA 1948.
Squad19 Dec 2033
Arron Bowman gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad19 Dec 2033
The team sheet said everything about Taylan Özgün
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 Taylan Özgün.
Match17 Dec 2033
A 2‑2 draw with Levski leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings19 Dec 2033
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market19 Dec 2033
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ognjen Gašević’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.