Bulgarian A-League: Lovech march towards title

Lovech took another step towards clinching the Bulgarian A-League after a 4-1 win over Montana on Wednesday.

Lyuboslav Penev’s team maintained their five point lead at the top and were untroubled by their 11th-placed opponents.

A brace from Brazilian attacker Doka Madureira had Lovech 2-0 up after half an hour and when defender Alexandre Barthe made it three early in the second half, the points were sealed.

Forward Georgi Ivanov pulled a goal back for Montana, but full-back Petar Zanev responded five minutes later to make it 4-1.

Lovech would have wrapped up the title if not for Levski Sofia’s 3-0 derby win over Slavia Sofia.

A brace from midfielder Hristo Yovov, either side of a Vladimir Gadzhev strike, kept Levski’s hopes of winning the title alive with two games to go.

In the relegation battle, none of the bottom three were able to record a win.

Rakovski, who sit in the relegation play-off spot, managed a 2-2 draw at home to Minyor Pernik.

Aleksandar Branekov and Atanas Ivanov had given them a 2-0 lead after an hour, before conceding twice to settle for a point.

Fares Brahimi struck first on 67 minutes and Tomislav Pavlov hit a 92nd-minute equaliser for Pernik.

Akademik Sofia lost their sixth-straight game after a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Lokomotiv Plovdiv.

Zdravko Lazarov opened the scoring for Plovdiv from the penalty spot, before Asparuh Vasilev equalised for Akademik.

But Sergio Organista scored an own goal to hand Lokomotiv three points and leave his team in second-last.

Bottom-placed Sliven’s struggles continued as they suffered a 2-0 loss against Lokomotiv Sofia, following goals from Marco Dafchev and Vladislav Romanov.

In other games, Georgi Iliev and Rumen Nikolov struck in the first quarter of an hour as Cherno More beat Kaliakra 2-0.

Beroe struck twice in the first half through Simeon Mechev and Vladislav Zlatinov in their 2-0 win at Chernomorets Burgas.

CSKA Sofia ensured their Europa League place after playing out an entertaining 2-2 draw with Pirin Blagoevgrad.

Rumen Trifonov and Apostol Popov struck for CSKA, but Dimitar Iliev and Ivan Tsvetkov were also on the scoresheet as the teams shared the spoils.