The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pedro Victor will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak 1918 the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Maksym Kovaliov 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
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xande 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 Oct 2027
Xande was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.56. 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 words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
1‑4 to Ludogorets, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak 1918 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xande 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.
Jhan Mena 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 nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak 1918 can pretend not to have heard.
Maksym Kovaliov 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Spartak 1918 and Slavia Sofia, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xande 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.
At 22 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.
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.
Maksym Kovaliov 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Boubacar Hanne and Spartak 1918 agree another 3 years.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xande 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.
A 2‑1 win over Botev Vratsa, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Daniel Ivanov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.92. 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Botev Vratsa spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Patrick Luan could not do
Maksym Kovaliov 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Xande 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Spartak 1918 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak 1918 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ivan Aleksiev has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
The fee is $310.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Montana drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Angel Granchov 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Olsson 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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Mateo Jurić-Petrašilo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tailson. 3‑1 against Botev Vratsa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Tailson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.89. 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.
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mateo Jurić-Petrašilo 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Spartak 1918 are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak 1918 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Spartak 1918 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Maksym Kovaliov 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.
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Marcus Olsson 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Olsson 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.
Aleksandar Georgiev 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 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 Spartak 1918 will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Marked 5.80. 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.
“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 Spartak 1918, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Dimo Krastev has come up in conversations Spartak 1918 were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Olsson 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak 1918 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandros Parras 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Spartak 1918 will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak 1918 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Spartak 1918 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Olsson 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.