PFC CSKA Sofia

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CSKA (Sofia)
Full name	PFC CSKA Sofia
Nickname(s)	Armeicite (Army men),The Reds
Founded	5 May 1948
Ground	Bulgarska Armia Sofia
Capacity	22,500
Chairman	Pramod Mittal[1]
Manager	Stoycho Mladenov
League	TBI A Football Group
2005-06	A Grupa, 2nd place
Home colours 　 Away colours

PFC CSKA Sofia (Bulgarian: ПФК ЦСКА София) is the CSKA football club of Sofia, Bulgaria. Its home matches take place at the Bulgarska Armiya (Bulgarian Army) Stadium. The club was officially founded on May 5, 1948.

Contents 1 Address 1.1 Official sponsor 1.2 Equipment 2 Honours 3 History 3.1 Achievements 3.2 Disbanded 4 Name 5 Bulgarska Armia Stadium 6 Current lineup 7 2006 Formation 7.1 2007'January transfers 8 UEFA ranking 9 Greatest team 10 Famous players 11 External links

[edit] Address

3 Dragan Tsankov Boulevard. Tel: 02 963-3477 Fax: 02 963-3902

[edit] Official sponsor

Vivatel

[edit] Equipment

Uhlsport

[edit] Honours

• Bulgarian Championship: 30 (bulgarian record)
  • 1948, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1966, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1997, 2003, 2005
• Bulgarian Cup: 10
  • 1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2006
• Cup of the Soviet Army(till 1981 this cup was equivalent and superseded the Bulgarian Cup): 13
  • 1951, 1954, 1955, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990
• Bulgarian Supercup: 2
  • 1989, 2006
• European Cups: 0
  • Best results: European Cup (now called Champion's League) Semi-finals in 1966/67 and 1981/82 seasons; UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Semi-final in 1988/89 season.

[edit] History

CSKA Sofia, unarguably the most successful Bulgarian team, was formed on May 5, 1948 by merging the clubs Septemvri and Chavdar and initially named "Septemvri pri CDV".

Chavdar was relegated to the Second Sofia Division in 1947. At this time, Chavdar was based at the Central House of the Army (CDV). The managers of Chavdar hoped to revitalize the club by merging with yet another team. Initially, "Sportist" (Hadji Dimiter) was considered, but in the end, the choice fell on "Septemvri" (Sofia).

That year Septemvri reached the national finals, where it faced, and defeated PFC Levski Sofia with a final score of 3:1. The club merged with "DFS Cherveno Zname" in 1962 and with "DFS Septemvri" in 1968.

[edit] Achievements

The club has met much domestic and international success making it the most successful Bulgarian club in history. It has won the Bulgarian championship 30 times. The club's greatest domestic triumph was an unbroken string of national victories between 1954 and 1962 (a record written in the Guiness book of records). Significantly, the club also reached two times the Semi-final stage 1967 and 1982 in the UEFA European Champions Cup (today known as Champions League) and once the Semi-final stage in the UEFA Cup Winner's Cup 1989. CSKA managed to eliminate an acting European Champion three times: FC Ajax Amsterdam, Nottingham Forest, and FC Liverpool respectively. In addition, CSKA eliminated over the years clubs such as Juventus, Real Sociedad, Monaco, Parma, Bayer, Olympiakos and many others and played memorable matches with Inter FC, Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Valencia CF, Barcelona etc. The Club is still ranked 25th in the Champions' Cup All-Time Rankings. Two players managed to win the European Golden Boot while playing in CSKA - the CSKA all-time goals record holder Petar Zhekov (in 1966, scoring 36 times) and the famous Hristo Stoichkov (in 1989 with 38 goals). CSKA “hatched” many famous players, most notably the two successive waves of Dimitar Penev’s discoveries; the first one including Hristo Stoichkov, Lubo Penev and Emil Kostadinov in the late 80’s and the second one-Stiliyan Petrov, Dimitar Berbatov and Martin Petrov, introduced to the first team by Penev in late 90’s.

[edit] Disbanded

On June 19, 1985, the final game of the Bulgarian Cup took place at the Vasil Levski National Stadium. During the game both teams demonstrated extremely poor sportsmanship; the match saw several brutal fights and an attack on a referee. CSKA won the game, but the players' behavior percipitated a major scandal. By decree of Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, both teams were disbanded. CSKA Septemvriisko Zname was renamed "Sredets" and Levski-Spartak was renamed "Vitosha." Additionally, several major players including Kostadin Yanchev, Borislav Mikhailov, Plamen Nikolov, Emil Spasov, Emil Velev and the yet unknown Hristo Stoichkov were prohibited from participating in club games for varying periods of time. In 1988 CSKA's name was restored.

[edit] Name

CSKA has carried a plethora of names in its history. In chronological order they are:

• Septemvri pri CDV in 1947/48 and 1948/49.
• Narodna Voiska in 1950.
• CDNV in 1951 and 1952.
• Otbor na Sofiiskiya Garnizon in 1953.
• CDNA from 1954 and until the 1961/62 season.
• CSKA Cherveno Zname between 1962/63 and 1967/68.
• CSKA Septemvriisko Zname between 1968/69 and 1984/85.
• CFKA Sredets from 1985/86 and until 1988/89
• CSKA from 1989/90.

[edit] Bulgarska Armia Stadium

Main article: Bulgarska Armia

The team's home stadium, "Bulgarska Armiya", was completed in 1967 and stands on the same spot as its predecessor, "Atletik Park." A plan for major renovation has been adopted.

[edit] Current lineup

As of January 2007

No. Position Player 1 GK Oliver Kovačević 3 DF Aleksandar Tunchev 4 MF Daniel Morales 5 DF Kiril Kotev 7 ST Stoyko Sakaliev 8 MF Velizar Dimitrov 10 MF Georgi Iliev 11 ST Guillaume Dah Zadi 12 GK Ivaylo Petrov 14 DF Valentin Iliev 15 DF Robert Petrov 16 DF Aleksandar Branekov 17 ST Evgeni Yordanov

No. Position Player 18 MF Florentin Petre 19 MF Eugen Trică 20 MF Yordan Yurukov 21 MF Shikoze Udoji 22 GK Ilko Pirgov 23 MF Abder Kabous 24 MF Mihail Alexandrov 25 DF Ivan Ivanov 26 MF Nikolai Chipev 27 MF Tiago Silva 28 FW Alexandru Piţurcă 30 DF Yordan Todorov 77 ST Jose Emilio Furtado