Marked for Álvaro Milhazes
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Feb 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Chernomorets Burgas people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market1 Feb 2027
The offer from Levski for Zhulian Ivanov 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.
Squad1 Feb 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad1 Feb 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 Chernomorets Burgas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match30 Jan 2027
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zak Paulo Piplica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets1 Feb 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
Arno Valkenaers 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Ivan Marchev gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ivan Marchev has just signed for Chernomorets Burgas, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Zak Paulo Piplica 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Marked 8.48 — 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Marked 8.42 — 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
5 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 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.” Miroslav Nedelkov, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
Arno Valkenaers 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 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Hristo Mitev and Chernomorets Burgas agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zak Paulo Piplica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Kolyo Stanev beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Kolyo Stanev is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kolyo Stanev has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Market7 Dec 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Miroslav Nedelkov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Looking ahead7 Dec 2026
Pirin Blagoevgrad next, and one man in the Chernomorets Burgas dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market16 Nov 2026
“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 Chernomorets Burgas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Kolyo Stanev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Zak Paulo Piplica 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Correia
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mihail Mihov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Chernomorets Burgas needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Hristo Mitev knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hristo Mitev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Arno Valkenaers 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑3 to Etar, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zak Paulo Piplica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad9 Nov 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Chernomorets Burgas know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market9 Nov 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.