Bulgaria’s football championship speeds up, but the speed is with the minus sign for some teams. In the 25^th round Levski lost 0:1 to Locomotive Sf and continued with the freefall from last week, when it took only a point from Slavia with a 1:1 draw. Owner of the blue ones Todor Batkov got mad and fired sports director Hristo Yovov and assistant coach Marian Hristov, showing mercy only to senior coach Antoni Zdravkov before the eternal derby with CSKA on March 8. The blue fans are also angry, shouting words that can’t be written here.

As far as the old and everlasting enemy CSKA is concerned, it won a classic three in the clash with Slavia, taking the 3^rd place. The red ones face other problems, mainly financial ones. The club’s president Alexander Tomov promised out loud a big sponsor from the outside. All the debts have been secured, he claimed. “The fact that we got our permission to issue shares means full transparency for this club,” Tomov announced. As far as the match with Slavia was concerned, he shortly stated: “We are to face a derby with Levski and we shouldn’t lose our heads. Lots of work is expecting us from now on.”

The Plovdiv Locomotive shared a point with Chernomoretz in a jaded match, but still it could push away Levski from the 4^th position.

There were two smashing results in this second round of the spring segment. The team of Ludogoretz smashed 5:0 the visiting Pirin /Gotse Delchev/, thus returning to the top. The boys of Stoicho Stoev mocked with their opponent with these 5 goals scored within 30 minutes, as the result had been 0:0 in the break.

Beroe took its 3 points with the same result from another loser – the team of Lyubimets. Nothing can be said on this game, besides the 5 goals. However, the situation was different in Varna. Senior coach of Cherno More Georgi Ivanov – Gonzo got infuriated by the penalty, given by referee Dimitar Andreev to Litex over the last minutes of the match. Thus the orange ones won 2:1 and the sailors had to face their first loss as hosts. Gonzo blamed the referee for the situation, calling him a duffer. He even said that he had considered the taking out of the team due to the referee’s decisions. On the other hand Litex claimed the penalty had been deserved. What else could they say…

Botev Pl marked a haggard 1:0 victory over Neftochimik. Thus the team of Stanimir Stoilov has reached Levski by a point and is only 2 points away from its rival Locomotive Pl.

That was all for this round. The Levski – CSKA derby will be the key of the next one, as well as of the leaders Litex and Ludogorets. The latter should get prepared for its international clash with Valencia too.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev