Marked for André Hoffmann
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Aug 2028
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Lokomotiv Sofia, and it could have been more.
Market28 Aug 2028
Atanas Iliev has one foot out of the door
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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Borislav Tsonev, 33, rolls back the years — 8.29
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.29 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad28 Aug 2028
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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Emiliyan Gogev is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ognjen Gašević 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.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.93, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad28 Aug 2028
The manager makes an example of André Hoffmann
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market24 Jul 2028
Atanas Iliev hands in a written request
“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.
Match22 Jul 2028
The wait goes on for CSKA 1948
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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Yohann Magnin 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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Elton Hoxha is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Boris Dimitrov has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match22 Jul 2028
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Feb 2028
CSKA Sofia ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
The terraces21 Feb 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 33 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Squad21 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Yohann Magnin 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
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.
Market21 Feb 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ognjen Gašević’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
5.63 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Dec 2027
The manager makes an example of André Hoffmann
“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.
Match25 Dec 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad27 Dec 2027
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.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Ognjen Gašević knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ognjen Gašević trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The terraces27 Dec 2027
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Market27 Dec 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ognjen Gašević signs something — a contract at CSKA 1948 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
A mark of 5.65 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match13 Dec 2027
CSKA 1948 are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 41 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market13 Dec 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at CSKA 1948 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom13 Dec 2027
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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” José Martínes and CSKA 1948 agree another 4 years.
Match11 Dec 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation CSKA 1948 did not have in the autumn.
Squad13 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“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.
Match11 Dec 2027
A 1‑0 win over Lokomotiv Sofia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Lasha Dvali was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Dec 2027
Yohann Magnin 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.
Match4 Dec 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation CSKA 1948 did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Defensive actions: 19, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad6 Dec 2027
The manager makes an example of Fourat Soltani
“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.
Boardroom6 Dec 2027
CSKA 1948 release $4.1M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Loan watch6 Dec 2027
“I watch every CSKA 1948 game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kryvbas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad6 Dec 2027
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.
Player ratings6 Dec 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad6 Dec 2027
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Nov 2027
Frédéric Maciel 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yohann Magnin 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“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 ratings8 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom8 Nov 2027
CSKA 1948 release $4.1M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Atanas Iliev dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
13 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.
Match6 Nov 2027
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Spartak 1918 came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
5.64 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces30 Aug 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 35 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market30 Aug 2027
CSKA 1948 say no — this time
The offer from Voluntari for Boris Dimitrov 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Yohann Magnin 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 Aug 2027
“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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad30 Aug 2027
“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.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Aug 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CSKA 1948 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
“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
Squad10 May 2027
Yohann Magnin 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.
Loan watch10 May 2027
“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 8 appearances in 38 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Florian Krebs
“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
Steady
Squad29 Mar 2027
“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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Dragan Grivić 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Andrey Yordanov 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Diego Medina out for 14 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CSKA 1948 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CSKA 1948 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market1 Feb 2027
The bid was some way short and CSKA 1948 did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to André Hoffmann, and the manager let it.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.49 on the card, and the CSKA 1948 support went home talking about one name.
The terraces1 Feb 2027
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Match30 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Montana will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Jan 2027
Diego Medina breaks a bone — 22 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Jan 2027
Berna hands in a written request
“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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Yohann Magnin 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.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Ivaylo Nedelchev has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means CSKA 1948 have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Berna
“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.
Match23 Jan 2027
A 1‑0 win over Septemvri, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad25 Jan 2027
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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Marked 5.75, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Defensive actions: 11, 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
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Diego Medina out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CSKA 1948 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CSKA 1948 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Vladimir Ignatenko, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market18 Jan 2027
CSKA 1948 say no — this time
The offer from Dobrudzha for Benaissa Benamar 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom18 Jan 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Vladimir Ignatenko has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match16 Jan 2027
Arda made CSKA 1948 work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Darko Fiamengo commits to CSKA 1948 for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
Diego Medina breaks a bone — 72 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match12 Dec 2026
A European lesson for CSKA 1948
0‑1 against OH Leuven. 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.
Match12 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for CSKA 1948
7 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Yohann Magnin 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.
Squad14 Dec 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; CSKA 1948 are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of André Hoffmann
“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.
Match12 Dec 2026
It needed Borislav Tsonev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Lokomotiv Sofia, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Berna never got going
5.43 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Nov 2026
Radim Řezník hands in a written request
“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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CSKA 1948 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match31 Oct 2026
A 2‑1 win over Beroe, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Nov 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 ratings2 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Berna in the eights
A performance of 8.09 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market2 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CSKA 1948, another week without a signature from Frédéric Maciel.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at CSKA 1948 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dragan Grivić 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2026
A European lesson for CSKA 1948
0‑2 against Juventus. 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
5 matches without a win for CSKA 1948
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around CSKA 1948 are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 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 CSKA 1948 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match24 Oct 2026
1‑2 to Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 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 ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting André Hoffmann's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Ognjen Gašević will call it something else in private.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A mark of 4.24 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.