Marked for Celso Sidney
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 May 2027
Boris Tonev has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Cherno More can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match3 May 2027
24 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market3 May 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherno More can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Cherno More
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Cherno More is running low.
Squad3 May 2027
Stipe Vulikić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout3 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Stipe Vulikić
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Cherno More training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berk Beyhan 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 dugout3 May 2027
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Bernard Tekpetey was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Boardroom3 May 2027
$3.0M taken back off the Cherno More table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Apr 2027
Cherno More are in real trouble now
Position 14, 24 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market5 Apr 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherno More can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Edvin Kurtuluş 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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Stipe Vulikić
“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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Bandaró wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Cherno More can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matheus Aluísio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Apr 2027
The captaincy has been taken off Vasil Panayotov. Cherno More will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Market5 Apr 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Mar 2027
Stipe Vulikić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
66 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Cherno More training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berk Beyhan 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 dugout15 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Todor Pavlov
“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.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
When it matters, Berk Beyhan plays
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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Cherno More would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market15 Mar 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cherno More know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market15 Mar 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cherno More, another week without a signature from Sami Wattel.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match8 Mar 2027
24 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market8 Mar 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherno More can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Bernard Tekpetey and Cherno More agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Edvin Kurtuluş 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stipe Vulikić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Zhivko Atanasov
“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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“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 Cherno More know it.
Market8 Mar 2027
The Celso Sidney story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Celso Sidney signs something — a contract at Cherno More or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market8 Mar 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cherno More, another week without a signature from Tommy Neale.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Jan 2027
No end in sight to Cherno More's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Cherno More has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets18 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Zhivko Atanasov 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Celso Sidney scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Beroe, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Berk Beyhan 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Matheus Aluísio commits to Cherno More for another 3 years.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Guilherme Santos, and the manager let it.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Cherno More will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Match2 Jan 2027
5 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Nikola Nedkov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Transfer targets4 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Zhivko Atanasov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces4 Jan 2027
The crowd has taken to Berk Beyhan
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.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Plamen Iliev gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Dec 2026
4 matches without a win for Cherno More
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Cherno More are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Vasil Panayotov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Petar Marinov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Marked 7.87 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Cherno More had the best player on the pitch.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Testinha and Cherno More agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match26 Dec 2026
It needed Celso Sidney to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Spartak 1918, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout28 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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Boris Tonev after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Cherno More may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Guilherme Santos 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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Georgi Lazarov
“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.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Marked 7.98 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Cherno More had the best player on the pitch.
Match19 Dec 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Boris Tonev was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Cherno More dressing room was either.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
When it matters, Berk Beyhan plays
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.
Market21 Dec 2026
The name of Celso Sidney keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cherno More say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Bernard Tekpetey 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Vasil Panayotov
“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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Boris Tonev after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Georgi Lazarov asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The form table has caught Bandaró
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.
Looking ahead14 Dec 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against CSKA 1948 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market14 Dec 2026
The Asen Donchev talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cherno More know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Rosen Stefanov: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Cherno More have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Antoan Manasiev commits to Cherno More for another 3 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Celso Sidney named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Celso Sidney is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Boris Tonev after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Market7 Dec 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Cherno More man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Jorge Padilla was the best thing in any of them.
The dugout7 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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Bandaró
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
Celso Sidney scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Arda, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Zhivko Atanasov 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Berk Beyhan 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 dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Kristian Tomov
“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.
The dugout23 Nov 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 1‑3 Boris Tonev left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Berk Beyhan has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Cherno More 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 dugout23 Nov 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Market23 Nov 2026
The name of Celso Sidney keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Cherno More say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 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 Cherno More this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match7 Nov 2026
Cherno More rescue it on 93 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 93. Ludogorets had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.72, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Celso Sidney beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Boris Tonev: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. Cherno More lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Bandaró
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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
David Teles asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Nov 2026
13 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Guilherme Santos and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match31 Oct 2026
A point taken on 87 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Celso Sidney beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 17. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Jorge Padilla
“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.
Match31 Oct 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Nikolay Zlatev named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Nikolay Zlatev is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Bernard Tekpetey 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 ratings26 Oct 2026
Berk Beyhan did the work nobody counts — 6.67
15 combined actions and 6.67. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match25 Oct 2026
CSKA Sofia made Cherno More work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces26 Oct 2026
He is 21 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Georgi Lazarov
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and Cherno More 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 dugout26 Oct 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.” Boris Tonev kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Oct 2026
Celso Sidney wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Celso Sidney found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Lokomotiv Sofia went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Emanuil Nyagolov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad5 Oct 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 Cherno More this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match3 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Celso Sidney’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cherno More.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Nikolay Zlatev is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Cherno More will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout5 Oct 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.95 on the card, and the Cherno More support went home talking about one name.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Cherno More's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Cherno More has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 19 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Zhivko Atanasov 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
Slavia Sofia left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Bandaró wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Cherno More can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Cherno More
7 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.
The dugout28 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 Boris Tonev to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Berk Beyhan 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 Berk Beyhan is on it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A move Guilherme Santos would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Guilherme Santos is living that version at Cherno More, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 16 in, 3 out at Cherno More
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Bernard Tekpetey and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jorge Padilla slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Jorge Padilla is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Market7 Sep 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 Sep 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kristian Tomov has written the date down.
Market7 Sep 2026
The Berk Beyhan talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cherno More know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market7 Sep 2026
Window shut, Berk Beyhan still here
Cherno More spent the window trying to move Berk Beyhan on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Cherno More out
Out, 1‑2 to CSKA 1948, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Berk Beyhan at 21 — 8.21
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Berk Beyhan did not need any: 8.21, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 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 Cherno More, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Benfica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets24 Aug 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
He is 21 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Celso Sidney’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Cherno More.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.18 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
The chase for Bernard Tekpetey ended with $3.3M changing hands and Ludogorets out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No deal for Karl Fabien at that price
Cherno More offered $1.8M; Levski 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Benfica, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Bernard Tekpetey from Ludogorets for $3.3M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Match15 Aug 2026
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Transfer targets17 Aug 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Zhivko Atanasov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑2 to CSKA 1948, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Boris Tonev after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The offer went to Ludogorets 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$1.8M on the table at Levski. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 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.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.9M — a club that wants Karl Fabien enough to be asked twice.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Celso Sidney commits to Cherno More for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Zhivko Atanasov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Martin Yankov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Boris Bodurov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vasil Panayotov and Cherno More agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Vasil Panayotov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Cherno More asked and Dinamo Bucharest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match1 Aug 2026
0‑2 to Montana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Plamen Iliev, and the manager let it.
Market3 Aug 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Home is on Bandaró's mind
“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; Cherno More are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Jorge Padilla’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.