Marked for Erol Dost
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match9 Sep 2028
Arda strike at the death to beat Septemvri
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Septemvri had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Arda did not stop to explain themselves.
Match11 Sep 2028
Arda are in real trouble now
Position 14, 8 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad11 Sep 2028
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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Yordanov 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Match9 Sep 2028
Three points for Arda, 1‑0 the final word against Septemvri in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Marked 8.44 — 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolas Gétaz, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Sep 2028
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Aug 2028
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.
Market7 Aug 2028
Arda say no — this time
The offer from Beroe for Antonio Vutov 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.
The terraces7 Aug 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 30 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Match5 Aug 2028
The wait goes on for Arda
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vitalii Haivan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Tempers go at Arda
Jordan Knight 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Enmanuel Caballero has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Market7 Aug 2028
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Arda will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Match5 Aug 2028
Levski take the points off Arda
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Jun 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 91 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom19 Jun 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Arda
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Erol Dost says Arda went back on their word
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 Nov 2027
No end in sight to Arda's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Arda has to find a result from somewhere.
Market29 Nov 2027
“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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market29 Nov 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Birsent Karagaren will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arda the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad29 Nov 2027
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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lachezar Kotev 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Market29 Nov 2027
Experience through the door at Arda
Modestos Sotiriou arrives at 34 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Nov 2027
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arda lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market8 Nov 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match6 Nov 2027
No end in sight to Arda's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Arda has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad8 Nov 2027
There were 6 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
41 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad8 Nov 2027
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.
Match6 Nov 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
An afternoon Antonio Vutov will want back
Marked 5.67. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Nov 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market1 Nov 2027
“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.
Market1 Nov 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Birsent Karagaren will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arda the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match30 Oct 2027
The wait goes on for Arda
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad1 Nov 2027
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mostafa Abdelwahab is living that version at Arda, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad1 Nov 2027
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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lachezar Kotev 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.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Marked 8.18 — 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
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market11 Oct 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Tempers go at Arda
Antonio Vutov 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Lachezar Kotev 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fernando Arismendi, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Oct 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Arda told Antonio Vutov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Match9 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
An afternoon Tobias Asenzo will want back
Marked 5.55. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Sep 2027
A hiding for Arda
Beaten 0‑3 by Beroe, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad6 Sep 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market6 Sep 2027
So close: Vicente Prado’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Botev Plovdiv moved on, Vicente Prado reports back to Arda, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market6 Sep 2027
Erol Dost puts it in writing
“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.
Match4 Sep 2027
The wait goes on for Arda
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad6 Sep 2027
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.
Market6 Sep 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arda they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Sep 2027
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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lachezar Kotev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Arda
Vicente Prado 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Arda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Di Luciano 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
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.