Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA 1948 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CSKA 1948 can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
James Eto'o and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Atanas Iliev 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.
Position 8, 21 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
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 CSKA 1948, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 7.76 for the rest of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and James Eto'o was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dragan Grivić 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.
James Eto'o 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Atanas Iliev 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: 19. 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Danylo Tarasenko and CSKA 1948 agree another 4 years.
Something was said to Mamadou Diallo and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Plamen Bodurov to a room that had heard them before.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA 1948 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
André Hoffmann and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Eto'o 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CSKA 1948, and 5 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at CSKA 1948 will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA 1948 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSKA 1948, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” André Hoffmann and CSKA 1948 agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. James Eto'o 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.
Lasha Dvali 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Plamen Bodurov after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Yohann Magnin is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Nobody at CSKA 1948 will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“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 CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Atanas Iliev 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and CSKA 1948 know it.
A mark of 7.49, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
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.” Plamen Bodurov, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mamadou Diallo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Atanas Iliev 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at CSKA 1948 will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is James Eto'o’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and CSKA 1948 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA 1948 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA 1948 can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 14 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at CSKA 1948 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Zenit is saying, and nobody at CSKA 1948 is enjoying the guessing.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; CSKA 1948 are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Atanas Iliev 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nasarawa United have kept their man, and CSKA 1948 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. CSKA 1948 will try again when the window opens; Lokomotiv Gorna Oryahovitsa may not be selling by then.
90 minutes played. Berna found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Marek went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA 1948 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Atanas Iliev 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.
Lasha Dvali 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ludogorets have kept their man, and CSKA 1948 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Hoffmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
CSKA 1948 asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Level with 90 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon CSKA 1948 had all but put away. Arda will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
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.
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 Berna is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and José Martínes trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
CSKA 1948 have gone to Beroe 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.
James Eto'o 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 Atanas Iliev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
CSKA 1948 asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
In brief
The dugoutBerna has become a man the manager trusts
Add another name to the list: Académica have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Berna. The answer from CSKA 1948 has not changed — yet.
CSKA 1948 offered $660.0K; Fratria said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA 1948 can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ludogorets have kept their man, and CSKA 1948 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Fourat Soltani has his answer from CSKA 1948; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad21 Jun 2027
5 new faces, and CSKA 1948 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CSKA 1948 have done the hard part with CSKA Sofia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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 CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
CSKA 1948 asked and Chernomorets Burgas said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. André Hoffmann 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA 1948 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Lasha Dvali 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.
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 Atanas Iliev is on 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 CSKA 1948, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. André Hoffmann 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 CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Berna is on it.
8 goals in 10 games at Fratria — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA 1948 updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA 1948 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Somebody to talk to at the next peg, a few words of the language, and a training ground that has stopped being a foreign country. It never appears in a scouting report and it decides most signings.
In brief
SquadAndré Hoffmann is training like a man with a point to make
“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 CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 Kaloyan Strinski is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brian Sobrero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Hoffmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Fourat Soltani trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA 1948 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and CSKA 1948 have no good answer.
3 goals in 27 games at Montana — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA 1948 updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
6 new faces, and CSKA 1948 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.
Nobody at CSKA 1948 will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
8 goals in 10 games at Fratria — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA 1948 updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dragan Grivić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA 1948 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Lasha Dvali 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; CSKA 1948 are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at CSKA 1948 will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at CSKA 1948 that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
In brief
The dugoutEnzo Espinoza asks for a word with the manager
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA 1948 can pretend not to have heard.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kaloyan Strinski is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Hoffmann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and CSKA 1948 know it.
6 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.
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.
8 goals in 8 games at Fratria — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA 1948 updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Brian Sobrero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
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.
Dragan Grivić 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.
4‑0, and Mamadou Diallo took the headlines on an afternoon when everything CSKA 1948 tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A brace, and Atanas Iliev takes the afternoon — 9.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Atanas Iliev provided it, and the 9.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mamadou Diallo provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
André Hoffmann 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.
Marked 8.35 — 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
6 new faces, and CSKA 1948 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.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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.” Plamen Bodurov kept it short after the 4‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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 Berna is on it.
In brief
SquadWords at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Tiago Catarino
Two goals and a mark of 8.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
10 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Arda were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
André Hoffmann 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA 1948 and Arda in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
8 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA 1948 can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and CSKA 1948 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between CSKA 1948 and Levski, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. CSKA 1948 told Florian Krebs something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
4 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.
André Hoffmann 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.
2‑3 to Cherno More, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
1‑3 against Shakhtar, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
Position 3, 38 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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 7.12 for the rest of it.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Botev Vratsa had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.33, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Atanas Iliev is still being punished for one mistake
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at CSKA 1948 pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Florian Krebs is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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 Berna is on it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
0‑1 against Partizan, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
1 for Florian Krebs, marked 7.99, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Dimitar Sheytanov.
36 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout30 Nov 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.” Plamen Bodurov, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA 1948 can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one CSKA 1948 will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
SquadThe division's best last weekend was a CSKA 1948 man
André Hoffmann 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.
Something was said to José Martínes and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Borislav Tsonev’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and CSKA 1948 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Berna signs something — a contract at CSKA 1948 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
0‑1 against Feyenoord, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
1 for Florian Krebs, marked 7.68, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at CSKA 1948 pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Plamen Bodurov could afford to be generous.
0‑5. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kaloyan Strinski is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Plamen Bodurov could afford to be generous.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dimitar Sheytanov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and CSKA 1948 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Arda in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one CSKA 1948 will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSKA 1948, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at CSKA 1948 the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
0‑2 against Shakhtar. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
6 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.
Dragan Grivić 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dragan Grivić, and the manager let it.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Nobody left the CSKA 1948 dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout5 Oct 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 0‑4 Plamen Bodurov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Two goals and a mark of 8.78 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
1 for Florian Krebs, marked 7.86, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA 1948 can pretend not to have heard.
André Hoffmann 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.
7 goals in one match, Atanas Iliev on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of CSKA 1948 and Botev Plovdiv.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.
0‑2 away to the standard of Partizan. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
André Hoffmann 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.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout21 Sep 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Plamen Bodurov to a room that had heard them before.
There were 8 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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 CSKA 1948, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Aris is saying, and nobody at CSKA 1948 is enjoying the guessing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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.
Dragan Grivić 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Atanas Iliev is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
The offer from Levski for Yohann Magnin 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Lokomotiv Plovdiv wanted more than $720.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.87 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from CSKA Sofia for Dragan Grivić 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.
$670.0K on the table at Lokomotiv Plovdiv. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $773.5K — a club that wants Andrei Chindriş enough to be asked twice.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slavia Sofia is saying, and nobody at CSKA 1948 is enjoying the guessing.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berna was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dobrudzha will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. CSKA 1948 were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 7.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Montana for Marto Boychev 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.
André Hoffmann and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berna 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 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.
Add another name to the list: Dobrudzha have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Benaissa Benamar. The answer from CSKA 1948 has not changed — yet.