58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Sofia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Tomáš Holeš 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 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Henry Caparó has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means CSKA Sofia have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Lokomotiv Plovdiv had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Position 3 and 67 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad19 May 2031
Words at CSKA Sofia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Eto'o 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.
Nobody at CSKA 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and CSKA Sofia will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSKA Sofia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Position 3, 67 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Words at CSKA Sofia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Eto'o 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.
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.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. CSKA Sofia would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and CSKA Sofia will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
37 graduates, from a department now rated 11 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
Somebody from Ludogorets has seen every one of Fedor Lapoukhov’s last few games. Nobody travels that far that often out of curiosity, and everybody at CSKA Sofia knows it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lumbardh Dellova and CSKA Sofia agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Apr 2031
James Eto'o 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.
Andrey Yordanov 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.
Nobody at CSKA 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Serif Nhaga
Position 3 on 67 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
“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 Sofia, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CSKA Sofia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Zenit Penza for Tsvetan Chochev was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Mohamed Brahimi 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.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Words at CSKA Sofia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Eto'o 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.
CSKA Sofia 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.
A 1‑0 win over Lokomotiv Sofia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.