Marked for Daniel Ivanov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Beroe people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
José Mendes gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. José Mendes has just signed for Beroe, and for once the answer mattered.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad11 Jan 2027
The Beroe dressing room has split into 5 groups
Squads form friendships and that is healthy; this is not that. 5 separate groups, 4 players belonging to none of them, and a set of tables at lunch that have stopped rearranging themselves. It very rarely fixes itself.
Squad11 Jan 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 Beroe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Beroe
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ismael Ferrer was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market11 Jan 2027
He is 20, and nobody at Beroe signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Market11 Jan 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Beroe, another week without a signature from Daniel Ivanov.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Age has not caught Lovro Bizjak yet — 8.63
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.63 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match19 Dec 2026
Beroe get the job done against Arda
A 2‑1 win over Arda, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes of Emir Kuhinja at his very best
Marked 8.55. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Beroe.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Beroe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismael Ferrer 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 dugout21 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A falling-out at Beroe
Tomás Prost and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Angel Stoyanov, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Caio Lopes'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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
A mark of 5.10 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match31 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Beroe
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Beroe can tell you which week it ends in.
Match31 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Beroe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismael Ferrer 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 ratings2 Nov 2026
Caio Lopes runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Beroe
Preslav Georgiev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
$3.2M on the table at Beroe
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Loan watch2 Nov 2026
“I watch every Beroe game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Septemvri runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Angel Stoyanov to a room that had heard them before.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Beroe will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match17 Oct 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 10 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Lokomotiv Plovdiv left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Beroe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ismael Ferrer 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.
Market19 Oct 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Stefan Gavrilov has his answer from Beroe; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stefan Gavrilov, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“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 dugout19 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Beroe
Something was said to Stefan Gavrilov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Jaume Valens gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jaume Valens is on it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Sep 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Beroe scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Match28 Sep 2026
Beroe up to position 2
18 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match26 Sep 2026
8 unbeaten for Beroe
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Beroe did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Beroe
Juan Carlos Pineda 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Ivanov. 1‑0 against Slavia Sofia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Beroe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Caio Lopes 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Lovro Bizjak yet — 8.13
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.13 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match12 Sep 2026
Beroe make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Beroe have 4 straight wins of it.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Slavia Sofia wanted more than $1.8M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match12 Sep 2026
Three points for Beroe, 2‑1 the final word against Cherno More in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Beroe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Beroe
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.