Currently the Bulgarian national team finds itself in a low point in its rich history. The Bulgarians are on a winless streak of 11 games and during that time they haven’t exactly played against football giants.
Bulgaria’s last recorded win came on the 13/10/2018 against Cyprus (2:1) and for unknown reasons the then coach Peter Hubchev was sacked even though that was his 4th consecutive triumph.
After that came Balakov who failed to to beat Norway, Cyprus, Slovenia and even Kosovo. His two games with an English side brimming with confidence and let by the charismatic Gareth Southgate led two humiliating loses that saw the Bulgarians concede a total of 10 goals.
As a result the football legend and national hero was sacked (or resigned according to him) and was replaced with Georgi Dermendzhiev, a coach that is successful but rather unknown on the international scene. Here is brief look at hes career.
Playing career
He was born on 04/01/1995 (age 64) in the city of Plovdiv. As a player he didn’t achieve much in terms of trophies. The teams where he had his long career include Slavia 1913, Yantra Gabrovo and Spartak Plovdiv. His only cup win came in 1980 when his team won the Bulgarian cup.
He played as a defender.
Managerial career
Proffered tactical set up: 4–2-3-1
During the 1995/1996 season he takes over at Spartak Plovdiv in the Bulgarian “A” Group but is relegated after the team recorded only 6 wins.
In between 1998-2008 he worked as an assistant in Litex Lovech and one of the managers he worked under is the legendary Ljupko Petrović who won the Champions Cup in 1991 with Red Star Belgrade.
During that time Georgi and Litex won the Bulgarian league title a total of three times and are able to break the domination of Levski and CSKA - traditional local powerhouses.
His next seasons saw him as an assistant in FC Botev Plovdiv and FC Sliven. He finally took charge of Sliven but again was relegated while being head coach of a squad.
Dermendzhiev returned to the role of an assistant coach at Ludogoretz Razgrad and worked briefly as an youth academy director. At the start of the 2014/2015 season he took over as manager of the team from the city of Razgrad and at the time it was seen as a risky move since he was unproven and mostly unknown.
At Ludogoretz who are backed by a rich owner he was wildly successful on the domestic and European stage. He is only the second manager to lead a Bulgarian team to the group stage of the UEFA Champions League after a dramatic penalty win against Romanian giant Steaua.
Ludogoretz then was handed a tough group with Real Madrid, Liverpool and Basel. The team managed to become the first Bulgarians to win a Champions League game (1:0 in Sofia). Equally impressive is the 2:2 draw with former European champions Liverpool.
In 2016/2017 Dermendzhiev again reached the the Champions League group stage and this time he squared off with the likes of Arsenal, PSG and Basel. The Bulgarians are complete underdogs once again but they manged to finish third and qualify for the UEFA Europa League.
Georgi Dermendzhiev’s overall record as a manager of Ludogoretz is 129 games - 74 wins, 30 draws and just 25 losses. During his spell at the club he won the league 3 times (2014/15; 2015/16; 2016/17) and the Bulgarian Super Cup once.
After a brief spell in Kazakhstan he returned to his native country as a manager of the Levski Sofia but resigned from his position after just 100 days due to change in club ownership. As of October 2019 Dermendzhiev is Bulgaria’s new manager and will try to improve his country’s performance and finally record a win in 2019. His only chance to that will be 17/11 when the Czech Republic arrives in Sofia for another qualifying round of UEFA Euro 2020.
