Lokomotiv Sofia will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Lokomotiv Plovdiv were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“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 The request is on a desk at Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from CSKA 1948 for Enzo Espinoza 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 interest is real enough to have reached print. Lokomotiv Plovdiv have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Ivaylo Ivanov delivers — 7.74
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ivaylo Ivanov scored, was marked 7.74, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
7.69, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Marked 7.81. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Ittihad did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $3.2M for John Okoye Ebuka, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The chase for Isaac Solet ended with $3.8M changing hands and CSKA Sofia out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $48.3K — a club that wants Filip Gigov enough to be asked twice.
Lokomotiv Plovdiv 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.
Isaac Solet was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $3.8M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denislav Angelov 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.
Lokomotiv Plovdiv asked and Montpellier HSC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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; Lokomotiv Plovdiv are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Julien Lamy 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martin Ruskov and Lokomotiv Plovdiv agree another 4 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ryan Leijten was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Radoslav Krastev 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dimitar Nedyalkov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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 Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 8.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Iliya Dimitrov has, at Lokomotiv Plovdiv, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“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; Lokomotiv Plovdiv are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Parvizjon Umarbaev 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Leijten 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.