Since the highest level of Bulgarian football switched from a State Championships to an organised league structure in 1948 there have been so many changes it’s impossible to keep track of them, even with the benefit of hindsight.
One early reform in 1949 led to CSKA Sofia being crowned the inaugural champions, this despite the fact that CSKA had officially only played one competitive match.
Clearly lessons were not learned either, because the confusion only exacerbated as seemingly each and every season saw new formats introduced as the sizing of the league either inflated or decreased.
Should you head down the rabbit-hole and try to make sense of it all your head spins like a cartoon character hit over the head with a mallet.
Biggest Clubs in Bulgarian Football
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CSKA Sofia
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Ludogorets
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Levski Sofia
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Slavia Sofia
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Litex Lovech
So let’s simplify things greatly and focus purely on the here and now.
Presently the Parva Liga – otherwise known as the Bulgarian First League – consists of 16 teams, with a standard promotion and relegation system in place.
At the end of each season a series of Play-Offs commences, that sees the top six sides battling for European places. The winner of these Play-Offs is ultimately crowned as that year’s champions.
In every year since 2012 that has been Ludogorets but we’ll come to that in due course.
5) Litex Lovech
Lokomotiv Sofia would have run the Lilacs close for fifth spot if not for their bankruptcy in 2015.
Having re-established themselves as FC Lokomotiv 1929 Sofia it was decreed by the Bulgarian FA that none of their original honours can be attributed to the phoenix club.
This leaves FC Lovech comfortably behind Slavia Sofia but also comfortably ahead of the rest, which is no mean feat given they currently ply their trade in the second tier.
Founded in 1921 as Hisarya Sports Club, a name they maintained for the next 75 years, the northern outfit tootled along without much incident for much of their existence before gaining promotion to the top-flight in 1994 for the first time in their history.
Two years later came an even more profound development when the club was taken over by a local man made good and from the subsequent heavy investment came achievements that were previously beyond Lovech’s wildest dreams. These included four league titles and ventures into Europe.
Sadly, it has all unravelled horribly since, with their owner moving his vast fortune across to CSKA while expulsion from the top-flight came soon after when Lovech refused to complete a league match that saw two of their players sent off.
At least those dreams realised are memories to be treasured.
4) Slavia Sofia
Never relegated, Slavia have won the league seven times and the domestic cup on eight occasions but football fans of a certain vintage will know them best for a deep European Cup Winners Cup run in the late-Sixties that almost saw them encounter Bayern Munich in the final.
A comprehensive victory over Swansea City was followed by tight wins at the expense of Strasbourg and Swiss side Servette before they eventually came unstuck against Rangers in the last four.
That upending of the betting odds made their name, this club that began as an ideal conceived in a coffee house by students in 1913.
It is a club that has literally split itself in half in the past, dividing into two separate entities before reuniting again. It has also merged with Lokomotiv Sofia before reclaiming its identity at a later date.
Slavia’s story is not just about success in the Forties, Sixties and then much later in the Nineties. It is about survival.
3) Levski Sofia
Founded in 1914 by a group of high school students and named after a Bulgarian revolutionary, Levski have won 74 honours in their long lifetime and, like Slavia, have never experienced relegation.
It is a considerable feat that they have won league titles in every decade from the Thirties on.
Beyond their highly impressive 26 league crowns, two particular strands in their story stands out, the first shameful, the other jubilant.
In 1985 so violent were the scenes – both on and off the pitch - as the Blues took on CSKA in the Bulgarian Cup final that the ruling Communist Party made them temporarily change their name to Vitosha Sofia. Furthermore, several of their players were suspended for life.
On a much brighter note, Levski boast a proud European heritage, twice reaching the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup and on three occasions making the last eight of the Cup Winners Cup.
Perhaps more notable than even these landmarks, in 2006 they became the first Bulgarian side to progress to the Champions League groups stages.
They lost all six of their matches against Barcelona, Chelsea and Werder Bremen but that was almost of secondary importance to being there.
2) Ludogorets
The Eagles’ trophy haul pales to that of Levski’s but when you’ve only been a major entity for 12 years there is only so much that can be done. And Ludogorets have certainly maxed their potential to put it mildly.
Resurrected in 2010, five years after going under, the Razgrad club achieved promotion to the top-flight at the first attempt, propelled by the financial backing of their new owner, a Bulgarian pharmaceutical magnate.
Further investment afforded them to be busy that summer in the transfer market but still you would have got extremely generous odds in the football betting on Ludogorets doing what they did next – winning the Parva Liga at the first time of asking.
If that was astonishing what came next almost defies belief, with this club that was but a memory just over a decade ago claiming every title since. It is a consecutive run of 13 league crowns that makes Ludogorets the Bulgarian Bayern or Celtic.
Naturally, such a dramatic rise has been accompanied by European adventures and memorable nights have been had against Liverpool, Roma and Ajax. In 2017 the new force in Eastern European football drew 2-2 away to PSG.
1) CSKA Sofia
On average CSKA have won a league title every other year but critically they last did so in 2008.
Their current plight, that includes sustained and serious financial woes, is in stark contrast to much of their history, one that contains domestic domination and high-achievements on the European stage.
In both 1967 and 1982 the club named after the Bulgarian army reached the European Cup semi-finals, the latter seeing them dispose of Real Sociedad and Liverpool along the way.
They even had the temerity to beat Bayern Munich 4-3 in the first leg of their semi before being roundly thumped back in Bavaria.
With 799 fan clubs around the world, CSKA are by some distance the best supported and most familiar side in Bulgaria but regrettably, their fan-base closer to home can sometimes harm the reputation of the Sofia club.
In 2022 Alan Pardew resigned his post as technical director after witnessing racial abuse from the stands and to give a flavour of what CSKA’s infamous Ultras are like one of their sections is home to ‘The Animals’.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Adobe*
