Marked for Alexandre Rosado
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match28 Sep 2030
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Lokomotiv Plovdiv are no longer polite ones.
Match28 Sep 2030
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotiv Plovdiv can tell you which week it ends in.
Market30 Sep 2030
Adrián Cova has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Plovdiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Words at Lokomotiv Plovdiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Tekpetey 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.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Sevi Idriz 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.
Match28 Sep 2030
Arda left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad30 Sep 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jacopo Frosali and Lokomotiv Plovdiv agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout30 Sep 2030
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout30 Sep 2030
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Apr 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 76 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom8 Apr 2030
Gonzalo Ferrer has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Lokomotiv Plovdiv can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The dugout8 Apr 2030
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lokomotiv Plovdiv may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad8 Apr 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Bernard Tekpetey and Lokomotiv Plovdiv agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Words at Lokomotiv Plovdiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Tekpetey 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.
Squad8 Apr 2030
Sevi Idriz in a row with a teammate
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 Plovdiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 Apr 2030
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
The dugout8 Apr 2030
Patrick Luan has been promised minutes
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 Patrick Luan has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Apr 2030
83 days out for Henrique Martins after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotiv Plovdiv will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom1 Apr 2030
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market1 Apr 2030
“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 Plovdiv can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Georgi Milanov 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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Words at Lokomotiv Plovdiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bernard Tekpetey 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.
Market1 Apr 2030
Martin Atanasov is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Lokomotiv Plovdiv has been clear about where Martin Atanasov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Boardroom1 Apr 2030
90% of the income goes out in wages at Lokomotiv Plovdiv
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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Lokomotiv Plovdiv would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The dugout1 Apr 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to João Casimiro, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Mar 2030
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market4 Mar 2030
“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 Plovdiv can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom4 Mar 2030
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad4 Mar 2030
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 Plovdiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Mar 2030
Bernard Tekpetey 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 dugout4 Mar 2030
The manager makes an example of Guilherme Silva
“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.
Boardroom4 Mar 2030
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.
Market4 Mar 2030
Luis Miranda is 18, and Lokomotiv Plovdiv have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad4 Mar 2030
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.