World Cup USA ’94 / Semifinals : Fan-tastic Semifinals : Just Being There Was Enough for Bulgaria

It was an improbable situation from the start, and Petko Kadiev knew it.

Packed into a small conference room at the plush Bulgarian Consulate, opened just months ago in a high-rise office building overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica, Kadiev and about 20 other fans sat stone-faced, watching on television as their country’s dream came to an end.

Quietly, they munched on fried shrimp and drank white wine, their Bulgarian flags left rolled up on the table.

Their World Cup team had lost to Italy, 2-1. They were not surprised by the result, although they had hoped for a victory that would have given them a shot at the championship.

Before this year, the tiny Eastern European country had not even won a World Cup game in five appearances. Yet there the team was Wednesday, almost miraculously, playing in the semifinals.

“Who ever thought we would make it this far?” said Kadiev, who moved to Los Angeles from Bulgaria in 1959. “I’m not disappointed with the loss. . . . They have already achieved the unexpected.”

Bulgaria plays Sweden on Saturday for third place. Regardless of the county’s final ranking in the World Cup, the games have brought together Los Angeles’ Bulgarian community, including many who fled their homeland over the past 50 years to escape Soviet rule.

With a lifetime World Cup record of no wins, six ties and 10 losses, just making it to the tournament this year was an accomplishment for the country of only 9 million people.

“It’s a miracle something like this would happen,” said Kadiev, a movie production artist who works in Hollywood. “I am proud.”

The consulate quickly organized a party and invited some of the most prominent members of Los Angeles’ Bulgarian community, among them bankers, artists and lawyers. They showed up in business attire on Wednesday, with small Bulgarian flags pinned to their lapels.

“Just to make it into the best four teams in the world is enough,” said Bodigar Avramor, the conductor of the Beverly Hills Orchestra and one of the fans who attended the consulate party.

It finally gives the country located between Romania and Turkey along the Black Sea, the recognition it deserves, said Avramor’s wife, Ilka. And it gives hope to the Bulgarian people, who still live in bitter poverty despite the end of Moscow’s domination, she said.

“The country needs joy and happiness,” Ilka Avramor said. “This provides it.”

Still, Mark Marinoff, a Los Angeles financial consultant who fled Bulgaria in 1969, said he was disappointed that the team was out of contention for the championship.

“It would have been a history-making opportunity,” Marinoff said. But he added: “I’m pleased with the fact they have made it this far.”