The Bulgarian cup round of 32 match between Levaki Sofia and second division Dunav Ruse will take place later today. Predictably, this means that a lot of the Levski squad have been busy with their international fixtures. In addition to that, some injuries and a suspension further complicate issues. To further illustrate how bad the situation is, I will list out every Levski player by position, excluding most second team players, indicating the extent of their availability, or other problems:
Goalkeepers:
1 Plamen Andreev - Was on the bench for the U21 national teama yesterday. Will be swiftly transported to Ruse for the match
13 Niki Mihaylov - Ill and unable to play
99 Ivan Andonov - Has only ever played for the second team
Centre backs:
33 Jose Cordoba - played for Panama yesterday
5 Kellian Van der Kaap - available
50 Kristian Dimitrov - Injured in NT training
Left backs:
6 Tsunami - Injured (and yes, we somehow only basically have 1 left back)
Right backs:
2 Jeremy Petris - Yellow Card Suspension
22 Patrik-Gabriel Galchev - Available (but usually a sub)
Defensive Midfield:
8 Andrian Kraev © - Played 77 minutes in the men’s national team 3 days ago - available
37 Darlan - Available
20 Asen Chandarov - Available (usually a sub)
Attacking Midfield:
14 Iliyan Stefanov - Available (usually a sub)
10 Asen Mitkov - Played 72 minutes for Bulgaria U21 yesterday
97 Hasimi Fadiga - Available
Left Wingers
17 Welton - Injured
11 Jawad El Jemili - Injured
Right Wingers
7 Ronaldo - Available
88 Marin Petkov - played 72 minutes for Bulgaria U21 yesterday
Strikers
9 Ricardinho - Available
16 Preslav Bachev - Played for Bulgaria U19 yesterday
19 Bilal Bari - Injured long-term
As you can clearly see, things are not going well. So much so that in order to fill a starting 11, we will have to either play someone who has played >70 minutes on the other side of the country yesterday, use someone from our third division second team, or (please no) rush back someone injured. And you know what? This is all our fault.
As had been already established, the Bulgarian Football Union (BFS) is an awful, incompetent bunch of drunks. Just this year, they scheduled CSKA - Sofia - Levski - The game proceeded by marches toward the national stadium from both sides of Sofia - on the same day as the Sofia marathon, having to multiple days later reschedule, because it was infeasible. Poor scheduling is nothing new for the BFS. But here is the thing, Levski could have done something about this. The game could have been rescheduled, in fact multiple other teams rescheduled theirs. But the one team with the most Bulgarian national team players did not, despite the national team fixtures yesterday being public knowledge. This ignorance is absulutely moronic and suicidal. A clear indication that the club’s management does not make an effort to see more than say, a week into the future.
As a fun game, I will now make an effort to guess our starting 11 tomorrow:
4-3-3
Goalkeeper - Andonov - first team debut
Left back - Galchev (usually RB)
Right back - Ronaldo (usually RW)
Centre back - Van der Kaap
Centre Back - Kraev (usually CDM)
Defensive Midfield - Chandarov
Defensive Midfield - Darlan
Attacking Midfield - Stefanov
Left Wing - El Jemili (carrying a slight injury)
Right Wing - Fadiga (usually AM)
Striker - Ricardinho
Subs - No one???
Jokes aside it’s not entirely infeasible we use the U21 players who played yesterday as subs, and we also have access to a few kids from the second team who have never played for the first team.
I hope the few of you who got to the end of this post enjoyed this little dive into this wacky, wacky game that will be played 5 hours from now. And also tell me, has your team ever been in a similar situation before?