1980-81 was the most confusing Bulgarian season in terms of cups tournaments – three tournaments were staged, but their import was quite messy. On top of everything was the tournament played last: the ‘1300 years Bulgaria’ Cup. The Communist government organized enormous ‘celebration’ of rather incorrect 13 centuries of the existence of the country. Football had to play its part in it too, hence, the new cup. But it was designed as a kind of culmination: the 4 teams of the final stage of newly organized Cup of Bulgaria were moved to play against 4 foreign teams: Dinamo (Minsk, USSR), Arges (Pitesti, Romania), Admira-Wacker (Vienna, Austria), and Sporting (Lisbon, Portugal).
Levski-Spartak (Sofia) and Sporting reached the final and the Portuguese won 3-2. But this cup was one-time affair and no matter what the state thought, left practically no memory of itself – it was lost in the long train of events and to the football fans at home, let alone abroad, it was just one of the silly summer tournaments, dedicated mostly to shaping squads for the upcoming season.
The Cup of Bulgaria was another matter: Bulgaria was the only European country without a national cup – instead, there was the Soviet Army Cup, a gift from USSR, awarded by the Soviet Military Attache. UEFA did not like that, for such tournament did not abide to the rules, and was pressuring the Bulgarian Federation to organize a real national cup or be banned from the Cup Winners Cup. But it was not easy to either abolish, or rename the Soviet Army Cup for political reasons: the ever watchful and touchy Soviets would see such thing as a hostile political act. Between the rock and the hard place, Bulgaria maneuvered in a peculiar way, hoping to satisfy both sides – the Soviet Army Cup remained and its winner was still to represent the country in the Cup Winners Cup, but a brand new Cup of Bulgaria was created this year. At the end both tournaments were played until the fall of Communism, but inevitably one was to be reduced to silly unimportant tournament. It was clear from the beginning, bringing some uncertainty in the clubs – which tournament was really important? Well, must be the one giving to the winner a place in the Cup Winners Cup. For the moment, it was still the Soviet Army Cup. It was not only politics – one big problem was continuation: the Soviet Army Cup had long history as the country’s cup. Records were set. Suddenly there was another cup, having no history at all, but seemingly going to be most important – but it was not giving a place in the Cup Winners Cup yet. For some years the confusion will remain and no one will be really certain which tournament was more important.
The new Cup of Bulgaria.
Anyhow, the inaugural tournament was staged, organized somewhat differently from the usual cup format – instead of semi-finals and a final, there was round-robin final tournament. Levski-Spartak (Sofia), Slavia (Sofia), Trakia (Plovdiv), and CSKA ‘Septemvriisko zname’ (Sofia) reached the final stage, where CSKA won all of their 3 matches and became the first winner of Cup of Bulgaria.
CSKA – the first winners of Cup of Bulgaria. Such pictures are supposed to be historic, but there was little joy and this victory remains as a minor one for CSKA: since the tournament was unimportant for any practical reason, it hardly counted for a double. It stays mostly as ‘also won this year’. The fact that the weird ‘1300 years Bulgaria’ cup was somewhat the real culmination of the Cup of Bulgaria confused the matter – CSKA won this one, but there was still another tournament: which one was the peak of everything?
The Soviet Army Cup was played as ever before, but the rules were slightly different this season, giving some advantage to lower division clubs. May be some clubs were uncertain about the importance of this tournament already, but it whatever the reasons, it was highly unusual tournament: half of the teams at the 1/8 finals were from Second Division. Both Bulgarians grands were eliminated at this stage by second division teams: CSKA lost to ZhSK Spartak (Varna)_1-2 and Levski-Spartak to Minyor (Bukhovo) 0-2. ZhSK Spartak reached the semi-finals and was eliminated only there by Pirin (Blagoevgrad) 0-2. In the other semi-final Trakia eliminated Belasitza (Petrich) 6-0. It was all strange – a second division team, unable even to aim for promotion, reached the semi-finals and was eliminated by a team going to relegation. In the other semi-final lowly first division debutant Belasitza was eliminated at last. The finalists were rather confusing pair: on one hand, these were the clubs with the best youth systems at the moment, so it was a clash of the most talented youngsters of the country. On the other hand, Trakia was not a real title contender in the championship and Pirin finished last and was relegated. The Cup final was very important, of course – Trakia won the cup only once, long time ago, and even played at the final for the last time in the distant past – in 1964, when it was still playing under the original club’s name: Botev. Pirin never won a trophy, this was its first chance and in any case – playing at the cup final was the highest ever achievement of the club. Weirdly, Pirin had a season combining the lowest – relegation – with the highest – possibly winning a trophy and going to play in Europe. The final was decided 2 minutes before half-time, when Mitko Argirov scored the only goal of the match and Trakia won the cup.
Then the moment UEFA had problem with came: Valery Dzanagov, the Soviet Military Attache in Bulgaria, awarded Trakia’s captain Petar Zekhtinsky, the ‘Plovdiv’s Zico’, with the Soviet Army Cup and Trakia was going to play in the Cup Winners Cup in the fall of 1981.
The boys made their happy round of triumph when Pirin sulked somewhere in the dressing room.
The photo of the winners appeared in ‘Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship’ magazine, as every year before – UEFA perhaps was not aware of this, but it was also part of the international problem: the Soviet Army Cup was always presented as a ‘true’ testimony of Soviet big-brother friendship, hence, the coverage in the magazine dedicated just to that. But never mind – these were the winners, the most talented young team in Bulgaria, perhaps coming to maturity at last, for they won their first trophy. Crouching from left: Georgy Andreev, Ivan Mikhaylov, Mitko Argirov, Petar Dimitrov, Krassimir Stoyanov, Kosta Tanev.
Middle row: Marin Bakalov, Kostadin Kostadinov, Petar Zekhtinsky, Georgy Slavkov, Roumen Yurukov, Krassimir Manolov.
Top row: Dinko Dermendzhiev – coach, Dimitar Vichev, Trifon Pachev, Blagoya Blangev, Atanas Marinov, Slavcho Khorozov, Kiril Peychev, Ivan Glukhchev – assistant-coach.
Second cup for Trakia and first for this talented generation, making sure that they were ready for a great era of success. Everybody was certain of that now, so let’s take one more look of the winners at the moment of their triumph:
Just winning the Cup and ready for more? How little everybody knew… this was the last trophy the club won to this very day.