Sensational Levski's top scorer Alexander Kolev is no longer part of the team's first team, Sportal.bg reported.
The Bulgarian national team, who scored the last two goals for the "tricolors" in the control with Cyprus (2:2) at the "Hristo Botev" stadium on June 6, will start a training process with the "blues" second team on Monday. This will happen, although the football player has a contract with the capital until the summer of 2026.
This was personally communicated to him by the club's owner Nasko Sirakov and the executive director of the 26-time champions Daniel Borimirov. That is why the 32-year-old striker did not appear today at the team's first training session in Pravets. As is known, due to his participation in the national team matches against Cyprus (2:2) and Greece (0:4), he and the other national team players were given a break until today, which is why they did not start training with the rest of their teammates on June 11, who have been in Pravets since June 16.
Kolev, who is a junior at the club, played 29 games last season in the efbet League, in which he scored nine goals and added two assists. This made him the team's number one scorer in the 2024/2025 season, along with Marin Petkov, who also has nine goals, but in 34 championship matches. Interestingly, after Kolev's goals, Levski has not been defeated. He was accurate in seven wins for the team and one draw against his former team Botev (Plovdiv).
The reason for removing the blue nine from the squad is not entirely clear at this stage. One of the versions is that coach Julio Velasquez does not want him in his squad, after the striker gave an interview a month ago, which caused some tension in the club. The former efbet Liga top scorer was fined for this action and after that the relations between the two parties seemed to cool down.
However, this decision is quite surprising, since in recent weeks it was claimed that there was interest in Kolev and even the management had announced a price of 150,000-200,000 euros for him. There was even information that the national coach Ilian Iliev convinced him to continue his career in Varna with the Black Sea team.
Certainly, Levski's scouts have been looking for a classy central striker for months to replace Alexander Kolev and Mustafa Sangare, but at this stage there is still no official contract with such a type of footballer at “Gerena“. And after Kolev's removal, this will force them to work even faster, since the new season is knocking on the door and Velasquez will hardly want to be left without a new centre striker for the matches in the Europa League and the first rounds of the efbet League.
Today at 18:30 is the first test of Levski's summer training against Spartak (Pleven) in Pravets.