Levski players, in addition to a sensational participation in the main phase of the Champions League, got away with a historic bonus for domestic football, Sportal.bg reported.
The new owner of the "blues" Atanas Bostandzhiev had promised a record-breaking 4 million euros for Bulgaria to the players, coaching staff and the club's administration if Julio Velasquez's boys had performed a mini miracle and eliminated the Greek champion AEK. This would have been around 20% of the amount, which was around 19 million euros, if the domestic champion had skipped the playoffs to enter the main phase of the Champions League. We remind you that this was the most expensive match in the history of Bulgarian club football.
As is known, the 27-time champions, who had a great campaign in the Champions League qualifiers and eliminated for the first time in their history three champions of their countries in one European campaign: the Bosnian champion Borac (Banja Luka) - 5:1, the treble-winning Universitat (Craiova) in Romania - 3:2, as well as the Kazakh champion Kairat - 2:0, were defeated 0:4 in the second leg in Athens, after a 0:0 draw in front of 40,000 in the first match of "Vasil Levski".
Nevertheless, Levski will now officially improve another record of its own, the one for the most matches in European tournaments within a single tournament, as after the eight matches so far, it has also guaranteed eight matches in the main phase of the Europa League, and the previous record was from 14 clashes under the leadership of Nasko Sirakov and Stanimir Stoilov in the 2005/2006 season, when the team reached the quarterfinals of the UEFA Cup.
From the investment company "Gemcorp" (Gemcorp), led by Atanas Bostandzhiev, have also made record investments in the history of the 112-year-old club, with nearly five million euros already invested in new players, and this amount will almost certainly be increased in the coming weeks, so that Velasquez's team can be strengthened for the clashes against the seven-time European club champion Milan, the winner of the most important award since 1993 - Marseille, the sensation from the last Premier League campaign - Sunderland, as well as Viktoria (Pilsen), Salzburg, Jagiellonia, Lillestrøm and NEK, who are rivals of the home champion in Europe.
In addition, the club also aims to defend its title in Bulgaria, which was won after 17 years, as this is the only way Levski will be able to make a new attempt to enter the Champions League next year.