Bulgaria have played international football since 1923, competing in FIFA World Cup qualifying and continental tournaments.
Overview
The Bulgaria national football team represents the country in international association football and is governed by the Bulgarian Football Union, which was founded in 1923. The team competes in the UEFA zone and has participated in several FIFA World Cup tournaments, with its most prominent performance coming at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, where the squad reached the semi-finals. Hristo Stoichkov, who won the Ballon d'Or that same year, was the defining figure of that generation.
Since the mid-1990s, the team has not replicated that level of success and has qualified infrequently for major tournaments. The squad has undergone considerable rebuilding across subsequent decades, with results in European and World Cup qualifying campaigns proving inconsistent.
Current players in the national setup include goalkeeper D. Mitov, defenders and midfielders such as D. Naumov, D. Sheytanov, M. Velichkov, and K. Dimitrov, along with forward R. Bozhinov. The team has not won a major senior international title.
Current squad · 26
E. Tsenov
A. Kraev
P. Panayotov
K. Stoyanov
B. Tsonev
Z. Dimitrov
L. Petkov
G. Rusev
Ilia Gruev
Yoan Stoyanov
