From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation CSKA Sofia did not have in the autumn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Leandro Godoy. 2‑0 against Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match5 Sep 2026
CSKA Sofia keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Isaac Solet, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Market31 Aug 2026
The chase for Vasil Simeonov ended with $680.0K changing hands and Montana out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad31 Aug 2026
James Eto'o 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 CSKA Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
Whatever happens, CSKA Sofia 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
The manager makes an example of Ioannis Pittas
“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 ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at CSKA Sofia.
Match29 Aug 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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 ratings31 Aug 2026
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put CSKA Sofia out
Out, 0‑0 to Botev Vratsa, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad24 Aug 2026
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Sofia can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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 Aug 2026
Adrián Lapeña 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 Aug 2026
Léo Pereira 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.70 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Cherno More for Ivan Turitsov 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
James Eto'o 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 CSKA Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A defender's afternoon for James Eto'o
Defensive actions: 22. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA Sofia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Ioannis Pittas’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to CSKA Sofia.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.42 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
There were 13 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ioannis Pittas and CSKA Sofia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jean-Philippe Gbamin 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
James Eto'o 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Three points for CSKA Sofia, 2‑1 the final word against Ludogorets in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
At 23 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Ivan Turitsov again, and this time the name on the line is Cherno More. CSKA Sofia are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Mohamed Brahimi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Arda are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. CSKA Sofia will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
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 7.96 for the rest of it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” James Eto'o commits to CSKA Sofia for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 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 Sofia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA Sofia 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Botev Plovdiv, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ioannis Pittas
“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 terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Alejandro Piedrahita 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Teodor Ivanov has come up in conversations CSKA Sofia were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.