A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Dunav Ruse know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dunav Ruse this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Dunav Ruse training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fabricio 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dunav Ruse, another week without a signature from Ilker Budinov.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
14 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Helóine Correia has, at Dunav Ruse, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fabricio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Spas Malinov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Valeri Iliev has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Dunav Ruse have gone and got theirs early.
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.
Minyor Pernik will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Dunav Ruse were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.25 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fabricio 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.
He is 23 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.
13 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.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Radoslav Bojinov kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Dunav Ruse have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
1‑5 to Yantra, 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.
6 goals in one match, Denislav Minchev on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Dunav Ruse and Yantra.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
That is the business done at Dunav Ruse until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dunav Ruse this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. DAC Dunajska Streda have kept their man, and Dunav Ruse go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Kristiyan Balov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dunav Ruse have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dunav Ruse, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Kristiyan Balov has moved up it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.21 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Fabricio: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kristiyan Balov did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.54 for the rest of it.
Dunav Ruse have gone to CSKA 1948 with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kristiyan Balov did not need any: 9.37, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $204.8K — a club that wants Marto Boychev enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to CSKA 1948 this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dunav Ruse and Chernomorets Burgas in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Kristiyan Balov 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.
1‑4 to Fratria, 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.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.53 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ilker Budinov has, at Dunav Ruse, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The shirt still fits. Preslav Petrov is back at Dunav Ruse, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Fabricio 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Preslav Petrov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Petar Stoyanov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.