Ludogorets Razgrad beat Septemvri Sofia 2:1 in the Bulgarian First League at Huvepharma Arena on Monday evening. The hosts kept their unbeaten run intact after a match that swung one way and then the other. Three goals gave us the final score, but the turning point came when the visitors lost their shape.
Ivajlo Čočev opened the scoring in the twenty-first minute, finishing a move that had been building since the first quarter-hour. Aguibou Camara restored Ludogorets' lead fifty-nine minutes in, and Frantzety Herard pulled one back for Septemvri eighty-one minutes on. Three goals, three different moments, and the home side held on.
Substitutions started early, with Sebastian Wade coming on for Septemvri in the fourteenth minute. We saw a triple change for the hosts in the sixty-eighth minute — Čočev, Son and Bernard Tekpetey all came off together. The visitors brought on Yoan Baurenski and Aleksandar Marinov late on, but the damage was already done. By then Ludogorets had seen it out.
We had called for a home win before kick-off, and the result backed that up. The confidence we put on it was sixty-two percent, and the match played out much as we expected. Ludogorets pressed high and took their chances when they came, while Septemvri found no answer to the pressure in the second half.
The statistics tell a story of control rather than dominance. Ludogorets had forty-seven percent possession against fifty-three for the visitors, but their shot accuracy sat at forty-four percent compared to Septemvri's twenty-five. Eight shots on target produced two goals for the home side, while the visitors managed only two on target from their total effort.
The result keeps Ludogorets third in the table with twenty-three points from nine games, two wins more than Septemvri in tenth. The visitors' run of five defeats in nine matches now stretches further, and the gap between them and the top half is growing. Ludogorets remain unbeaten, and the momentum is with them.