A review of Bulgaria’s performance in FIFA World Cup Finals

published on 6/11/10 12:42 PM

Hristo Stoichkov scoring against Germany at the USA-1994 World Championship, where Bulgaria qualified for the semi finals.

Photo: archive

Long at last! The four-year period since the previous FIFA World Cup in Germany have elapsed and for the first time in the history of the tournament the African continent will receive the 32 teams with the Republic of South Africa playing the host country.

Out of a total of 19 FIFA World Cup Finals Bulgaria has taken part in seven. For the first time that happened in Chile in 1962, and the last time was in France in 1998. Until the ‘crazy American summer’ of 1994, when the Bulgarian side qualified for the semifinals and ended fourth in the overall ranking, the national football team has succeeded in qualifying for the second round only once more, in Mexico in 1986, where they lost to the host nation 2:0 in the round of 16.

In 1994 at the FIFA World Cup in the United States the stellar Bulgarian generation of Hristo Stoichkov, Yordan Lechkov, Emil Kostadinov, Krassimir Balakov, and Borislav Mihaylov, led by coach Dimitar Penev surprised everyone, including the Bulgarians, with their riveting performance and landed semifinalists. There they played versus Italy, but the referee from France ‘lent a hand’ to squadra azzura. In the 70th minute of the regular time, the score was 2:1 in Italy’s favour, but the referee did not give a penalty shoot for Alessandro Costacurta’s play with hands in the penalty box. Eventually, Bulgaria lost 1:2 to Italy, and in the 3rd place game lost to Sweden 0:4 remaining thus fourth in the world. With his score of 6 goals, Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov became the top scorer of the 1994 FIFA World Cup Finals together with Russia’s Oleg Salenko also with 6 goals in the net.

Unfortunately, that same ‘golden generation’ qualified only one more time for the World Cup Finals, and that was 4 years later, in France, but they suffered a heavy defeat and dropped out as early as the first round. Ever since despite the emergence of new football stars such as Dimitar Berbatov, Martin Petrov, Stilyan Petrov, and Dimitar Ivankov, there was always something that prevented the Bulgarian side from playing at the world’s most prestigious football event. In the qualifications for the 2010 finals in the Republic of South Africa, Bulgaria was in the same group with Italy, Montenegro, Georgia, Ireland and Cyprus. Only Italy made it to the finals. The Bulgarian team ended third in their preliminary group and lost all hopes of going to South Africa.

The Bulgarian soccer fans and experts will follow the World Cup Finals with a keen interest. Particular attention will be given to the games England and Switzerland will play because they are in the same qualification group with Bulgaria for the 2012 European Football Championships in Poland and Ukraine. The first matches of the Bulgarian team are due this autumn.

English version by Radostin Zhelev

По публикацията работи: Dimitar Ushev

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A review of Bulgaria’s performance in FIFA World Cup Finals

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