Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Patrick Luan. 3‑1 against Cherno More, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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.” Kaloyan Yankov kept it short after the 3‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arda can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Arda know it.
Level with 91 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Arda had all but put away. Botev Vratsa will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
With 4 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Emil Viyachki 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ventsislav Kerchev’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Arda needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arda have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Atanas Kabov's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Spartak 1918 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Arda is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Arda know it.
Minute 90, against Montana, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Lokomotiv Plovdiv in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Arda 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arda will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kaloyan Yankov on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arda can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sigma Olomouc have kept their man, and Arda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 20 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Stanislav Ivanov. 2‑0 against Beroe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Simeon Vasilev 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.
10 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arda will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Arda, and it is not being withdrawn.
Arda asked and CSKA 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.
Add another name to the list: Slavia Mozyr have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Simeon Vasilev. The answer from Arda has not changed — yet.
Minute 94, against Ludogorets, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Porto keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Add another name to the list: Botev Vratsa have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Georgi Nikolov. The answer from Arda has not changed — yet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA 1948 have kept their man, and Arda go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.80, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Radoslav Stoyanov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Arda can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Simeon Vasilev has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Viktor Popov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.10 — 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.