Marked for Luis Vargas
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 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 The request is on a desk at Levski, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Levski
Maicon 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Levski training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Álex Centelles 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.
Match28 Nov 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mazire Soula. 1‑0 against Septemvri, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Nothing got past Serginho
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Anatoliy Nuriyev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
The afternoon belonged to Mazire Soula
A mark of 7.95, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market2 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 The request is on a desk at Levski, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Levski's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Levski has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Everton Bala 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“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; Levski are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Luis Vargas in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levski this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Sep 2026
Levski throw away a 2-goal lead
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Spartak 1918 the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Levski will enjoy reviewing.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market14 Sep 2026
The phone has started ringing about Everton Bala again, and this time the name on the line is CSKA Moscow. Levski are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match12 Sep 2026
8 unbeaten for Levski
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Levski did not have in the autumn.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Levski heard it as anything else.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Levski training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Everton Bala 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Levski
Luis Vargas 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
One of those days for Maicon
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.15, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jan Morávek 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
Steady
Match29 Aug 2026
Mustapha Sangaré wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Mustapha Sangaré found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Lokomotiv Plovdiv went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Christian Makoun delivers — 7.63
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Christian Makoun scored, was marked 7.63, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Maicon in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levski this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Aug 2026
Whatever happens, Levski do not lose
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Levski training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Radoslav Kirilov 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mustapha Sangaré. 2‑1 against Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.03 — 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Luis Vargas
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Aug 2026
Osasuna arrived with $6.8M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Levski sell a favourite for $6.8M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Svetoslav Vutsov was one of the reasons people came, and $6.8M does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Levski
Christian Makoun 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Álex Centelles 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Levski cannot find the net
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.
Squad17 Aug 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
This league is too small for Jan Morávek
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Levski will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Levski, another week without a signature from Nikola Leković.