World Cup ’94 : WORLD CUP USA ’94 / GROUP D PREVIEW : Sixth Time Lucky? : A Strong Offense Could Help Bulgaria Win for the First Time in the Finals
Bulgarian soccer fans can sympathize with supporters of a certain American football team.
Bulgaria has sent a team to the World Cup finals five times, including four consecutive appearances from 1962 through 1974, but it has yet to win a game on soccer’s center stage.
Can you say “Buffalo Bills?”
Buffalo’s Super Bowl losing streak will stand at least until next January, but there’s reason to expect Bulgaria’s 0-10-6 streak will end this month, in its sixth World Cup appearance. Advancing past the first round isn’t impossible, either, although Argentina is expected to win Group D and Nigeria is a potential roadblock.
Bulgaria’s national team recorded the most significant victory in its history last November when it defeated France in Paris, 2-1, for the first time in 61 years and wrested a World Cup berth from the French in the final qualifying game for both teams. French newspapers declared the result a nightmare, but for Bulgaria it was a dream come true--one built on skill and nerve.
Although surprising as a team, individual Bulgarian players have made major inroads on the European scene in the last few years.
The most prominent export is forward Hristo Stoichkov, who finished second to Italy’s Roberto Baggio last year in voting for FIFA player of the year. Stoichkov, 28, has led Barcelona to three Spanish championships and one title and one second-place finish in the Champions Cup, contested among the best clubs in Europe. A compact 5-foot-8 and 161 pounds, he’s a deadly accurate left-footed shooter, having shared top scoring honors in Europe in 1990 with 38 goals.
He’s also temperamental. Stoichkov was banned for life in 1985 for his part in a brawl, a sentence lifted when Bulgaria qualified for the 1986 World Cup. He was suspended for two months plus two games in his first season with Barcelona for stomping on a referee who made an unfavorable call, and he was branded as selfish by Barcelona Coach Johan Cruyff, who benched him for a key game last fall.
“There have been times when I have had the feeling that for Stoichkov, teammates are just people to be used for his own individual ends and then thrown away,” Cruyff wrote in his book, “My Footballers and I.”
Stoichkov’s response: “I don’t have to stand for this any longer. Things will never be the same between us again.”
There has been nothing wrong with his performance for Bulgaria. He vowed to walk back to Barcelona if Bulgaria beat France in that final qualifying game, and he did his part in the victory by setting up the winning goal in the final minute. He didn’t keep his word, begging off because he partied so heartily after the game. “I walked about Paris all night. Let me return by plane!” he told the French soccer magazine, France Football.
Coach Dimitar Penev will be unable to pair his nephew, Luboslav Penev, with Stoichkov on the front line. The younger Penev, who captains the Spanish team Valencia and has played 38 international matches for Bulgaria, underwent surgery in February to remove a malignant tumor from his testicle. He was not named to the World Cup roster.
Fellow striker Emil Kostadinov is a sure starter. He scored both goals for Bulgaria against France and plays for FC Porto in Portugal.
Defense and midfield loom as trouble spots. Goalkeeper Borislav Mikhailov plays for a team in the French Second Division and most of the defenders play in Bulgaria rather than in more highly regarded leagues in Europe. Zlatko Iankov is the midfield general and among the team’s most experienced players.
