“Ja, Bonev gola,” he said holding up two fingers to indicate Bonev had scored twice. A feeling began to creep over me that he might be right. I drank the clear liquid quite slowly this time. It was slivovitz. It was strong.

I then thought about English Teams playing against Bulgarians and remembered: Liverpool 5 CSKA Sofia 1, Anfield, 1981. I wrote this down, smiled a sweet smile to indicate that English teams had beaten Bulgarian teams too and slowly sipped the slivovitz.

“CSKA bad,” he said, and drained his slivovitz in one go. He refilled our glasses and then said “Ahha, ahah, CSKA good” as he remembered the following score: CSKA Sofia 2 Liverpool 0, Sofia, 1982. He wrote this result down with a flourish and nodded his head vigorously at me, “Hahahaha”. I shrugged my shoulders and laughed for some reason, Damn he is absolutely right, I thought. We emptied our glasses.