7 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.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christian Makoun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Cicinho 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maicon was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Álex Centelles has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The offer from Tondela for Everton Bala 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.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Lokomotiv Plovdiv spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Marked 8.37 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.10 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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.
The offer from CSKA 1948 for Nikola Serafimov 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.
The offer from Lokomotiv Plovdiv for Mustapha Sangaré 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.
Svetoslav Vutsov 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 Álex Centelles was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: CSKA 1948 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nikola Serafimov. The answer from Levski has not changed — yet.
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Everton Bala takes the afternoon — 8.16
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Everton Bala provided it, and the 8.16 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Levski have gone to CSKA 1948 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.
Levski have gone to Ludogorets 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Christian Makoun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Christian Makoun wants continental football; whether Levski can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Svetoslav Vutsov 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.
Squad3 Aug 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Svetoslav Vutsov’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and Levski 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.
In brief
The dugoutMazire Soula knocks on the manager's door
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Maicon