Radio Bulgaria

The Bulgarian national football team brought disappointment with their first attempt to qualify for the finals of the UEFA Euro 2012. Bulgaria suffered a serious loss from England at the Wembley Stadium with 0:4. Jermain Defoe scored three out of the four goals. Tottenham’s striker also assisted Adam Johnson’s goal and logically was pronounced to be the player of the match. Bulgaria will host Montenegro in the next round. So far the Montenegrin team has one victory over the one of Wales with 1:0.

The Bulgarian national youth volleyball team won the bronze medals at the European championship in Belarus. The Bulgarians earned their right to argue over the title after a victory at the semi-finals over the Netherlands by 3:0 /29:27; 26:24; 25:20/. The young Bulgarian volleyball players lost in the final match from Russia by 1:3 games. They won the first game by 25:23, but after that the Russians won the next three ones by 25:20, 25:15 and 25:21. Thus the Russian team became a European youth champion. This was the first final for Bulgaria after 1991, when our youth team became a world champion in Cairo.

In the meantime it became clear that the Bulgarian male volleyball team would play in the World League 2011 too. The World League will have a new regulation through the next season. In 2011 the 16 teams /the students of Silvano Prandi among them/ will be divided into 4 groups and the four strongest teams will enter one of them. The final eight will consist of the first three teams from that group, the winners from the rest groups and the host of the tournament. The final quota will be determined in a tournament between the 4th from the super group and the second teams in the rest three groups. In 2010 Brazil won again the World Cup.

Vania Stambolova finished 3rd the 400 meter hurdles sprint at the tournament of World Cup of track and fields in Split. Despite the experts’ forecasts the Bulgarian competitor took the bronze with a result of 54.89 seconds. Nickiesha Wilson from Jamaica became the winner with 54.52 seconds.

Some more football. The Gods of Football Olympus – the Day of Legends – this was the motto of the 6th beneficial match in Hamburg that traditionally gathered legends of German soccer for noble causes. Over 80 soccer heroes, many world and European champions among them, followed the invitation of the organizer Reinchold Beckmann for participation in the match “Hamburger” versus the “stars” of Germany and the rest of the world at the Millerntor Stadium. The aim was funds to be gathered for the building of a football school. World champions Lottar Matthaus, Guido Buchvald and Olaf Thon took part in the team of Germany together with the magic trio from Stuttgart Bobic-Balakov-Elber. They all entertained 24 500 spectators at the stadium in St. Pauli. The team of “Hamburger” won the game by 3:2, thus having its 5th victory in the 6th charity match of this kind.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev