Bulgarian National Football Team

Bulgaria national football team is under the control of the Bulgarian Football Union. Bulgaria's best World Cup performance was in the1994 World Cup, where they beat Germany to reach the semi-finals, losing to Italy, and yet they manage to achieve a highly credible fourth place. Bulgaria first participated in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, but failed to move on to the next stage. The same thing happened in England in1966, Mexico in 1970, and West Germany in 1974. The Bulgarian national team did actually manage to qualify from the first round in Mexico1986, although without winning a game, but they were then beaten by the hosts in the quarter-finals.

The most crucial date for Bulgarian football is November 17, 1993, when Emil Kostadinov scored two goals against France in Paris, and thus allowing Bulgaria to qualify for the World Cup in the USA in 1994. Under the management of the coach - Dimitar Penev, the Bulgarians made a huge impression, eliminating the world champion, Germany with a shocking result - 2-1 for the Bulgarians. Loads of people celebrated this win in Sofia, Varna and other Bulgarian cities, and the people were extremely happy with their golden boys. Having reached the semi-finals, Bulgaria played against Italy, but with the score 2-1 to the Italians an obvious penalty in favour of the Bulgarians was not awared by the referee, and they were knocked out. Hristo Stoichkov became the joint top scorer of this World Cup by scoring six goals along with the Russian Oleg Salenko.
In 1996, the team qualified for the European Football Championship for the first time, despite their failure to progress beyond the first round. The end of this generation of football players came in 1998 World Cup, when the Bulgarians again didn’t succeed in qualifying from their first-round group, and eventually going back to Bulgaria with a disappointing record of one draw and two defeats. Bulgaria didn’t manage to qualify for Euro 2000 or the 2002 World Cup, but did reach Euro 2004.