It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik 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 Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Aleks Lukanov has written the date down.
Juliano 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.
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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Minyor Pernik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Georgi 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Minyor Pernik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivaylo Klimentov 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Minyor Pernik, another week without a signature from Hristiyan Vasilev.
Squad9 Nov 2026
9 new faces, and Minyor Pernik 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Georgi Petkov left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hristiyan Vasilev is on it.
Levski go through and Minyor Pernik go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Georgi Aleksandrov is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable 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 Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Minyor Pernik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivaylo Klimentov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Krasimir Todorov. 2‑1 against Yantra, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Minyor Pernik will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
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.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Yantra next, and one man in the Minyor Pernik dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Minyor Pernik is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
25 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody at Minyor Pernik will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ivaylo Klimentov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Minyor Pernik needing him to play as if none of it matters.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Preslav Yordanov provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Steven Kirilov provided it, and the 7.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Tiaguinho scored, was marked 7.10, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Georgi Aleksandrov scored, was marked 7.43, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Georgi Aleksandrov 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.
12 goals in one match, Ivaylo Klimentov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Minyor Pernik and Ludogorets II.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
In brief
BoardroomWages swallow 131% of the Minyor Pernik income
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik 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 Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
7.94, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Minyor Pernik had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Georgi Petkov, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Words at Minyor Pernik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivaylo Klimentov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Georgi Petkov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Minyor Pernik will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dimitris Keramitsis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Minyor Pernik will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Valentin Dotsev is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Deyan Despodov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Minyor Pernik, another week without a signature from Georgi Aleksandrov.
In brief
SquadMinyor Pernik are still strangers to each other
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutStoyan Predev knocks on the manager’s door
6Edition
The Minyor Pernik Sentinel
7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondentUpbeat
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$45.0K settles it between the clubs for Yasen Ivanov
Cherno More have accepted the money. What Minyor Pernik do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 32 signed and 16 gone
That is the business done at Minyor Pernik until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” António Ribeiro and Minyor Pernik agree another 4 years.
Georgi Aleksandrov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Sofia have kept their man, and Minyor Pernik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Minyor Pernik know which stage they are at.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Minyor Pernik, another week without a signature from Hristiyan Vasilev.
In brief
The dugoutStoyan Predev knocks on the manager’s door
The clubs have shaken hands with Slavia Sofia; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kristiyan Hristov is living that version at Minyor Pernik, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Spartak Subotica keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Plovdiv have kept their man, and Minyor Pernik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aleks Lukanov and Minyor Pernik agree another 2 years.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $20.0K — a club that wants Yaya Dramé enough to be asked twice.
Minyor Pernik have gone to Dobrudzha 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.
Chernomorets Burgas wanted more than $19.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Marek; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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 7.80 for the rest of it.
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.
Georgi Aleksandrov 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.
$17.0K on the table at Chernomorets Burgas. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Minyor Pernik asked and Lokomotiv Plovdiv said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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. Minyor Pernik will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Georgi Aleksandrov has just signed for Minyor Pernik, and for once the answer mattered.
1 for Ivaylo Klimentov, marked 7.72, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Minyor Pernik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Minyor Pernik asked and Lokomotiv Sofia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivaylo Klimentov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A 2‑1 win over Sportist Svoge, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Krasimir Todorov 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nikolay Zafirov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Lachezar Bodurov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Minyor Pernik asked and Lokomotiv Sofia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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. Minyor Pernik will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Preslav Yordanov and Minyor Pernik agree another 2 years.
Spartak 1918 have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Minyor Pernik have made the call to Botev Vratsa. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Viktorio Valkov is in the works