“Bulgarian Football’s Patriarch Who Made Us Fourth in the World”
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Former football player and coach Dimitar Penev passed away at 80, the Bulgarian Football Union reported on Saturday. Legendary player and coach of both CSKA and the national team, he led Bulgaria to its greatest football success – the fourth place in the 1994 World Cup.
“Giant! The greatest of all! The patriarch of our football! The man who made us fourth in the world! The man who shaped dozens of us as people and as athletes! Rest in peace, Boss! You will never be forgotten,” the country’s most successful football player ever, Hristo Stoichkov, wrote on his Facebook profile.
Born in 1945 in the village of Mirovyane, Penev started his playing career in Lokomotiv Sofia but quickly moved to CSKA Sofia where he spent 13 years and recorded 329 games, scoring 24 goals for the team. Regarded as one of the country’s best centre backs, he also participated in three world cups in 1966, 1970 and 1974, accumulating 90 matches for the national team. He was named Bulgarian Footballer of the Year twice in his career.
His managerial career is even more illustrious. He was Bulgaria’s head coach when the country reached its greatest footballing moment – the fourth place at the 1994 FIFA World Cup. He took over the so-called “Golden Generation” of Bulgarian football in 1991. The squad was filled with players playing at high level in some of the best leagues in the world – the biggest star, Hristo Stoichkov, finished second in the Ballon d’Or rankings in 1992 before becoming the only Bulgarian ever to win the award in 1994. However, up until 1994, the national team had never won a single World Cup match. The Bulgarians almost did not make it to the biggest competiton – a 90th minute winner was needed in the qualifying match against France in 1993 to their tickets to the US.
The 1994 World Cup kicked off with another disappointment for Bulgaria after a 0-3 defeat to Nigeria, but under Penev’s management the squad managed to turn things around and scored not one but two long-awaited victories in the group stage – 4-0 against Greece and 2-0 against star-studded Argentina. The tournament saw the end of Diego Maradona’s World Cup career, as he failed a drug test just before the match against Bulgaria. In the round of 16, Bulgaria sealed a dramatic penalties win over Mexico before handing one more big surprise: a 2-1 win over one of the favourites Germany – a team featuring players like Jurgen Klinsman, Lothar Matthaus and Oliver Kahn. Two goals by Roberto Baggio crushed Bulgaria’s dreams in a 2-1 loss to Italy in the semi-finals, followed by a 0-4 loss to Sweden in the match for the third place, but nation-wide celebrations filled the streets in the country for days.
Penev’s coaching career continued until 2012, leaving 3 Bulgarian championship titles, 4 Bulgarian Cup wins and one Bulgarian Super Cup triumph under his resume. He returned to CSKA Sofia as a consultant for the 2019 season and was named as the club’s honorary president in 2016.
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