Former national team player Vladimir Manchev gave his opinion to Sportal.bg before Bulgaria's match against Spain in Valladolid.
The striker played on Spanish pitches between 2004 and 2008, when he recorded two periods at the "Estadio José Soria". The former CSKA and Lille star said that the national team needs time.
"I hope for a good performance, but we all know what the reality is. Bulgarian football lags far behind that in countries like Spain, we can't find the hot water. This is simply the truth. I would be happy for the boys to win 3:0, but we have nothing to oppose the Spaniards with. We have a lot of young guys in the team who need time. You need patience.
I remember the match in Granada well in 2002. We lost minimally, we played well, Spain and then there were good players, but then they became even stronger, they progressed a lot, they achieved great successes. We, on the other hand - at that time we had players in strong European clubs, and in recent years we have only gone downhill. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but this is the reality - we have no football arguments against such teams to date.
Otherwise, I have excellent memories of Valladolid. It is not a particularly large city for the size of Spain, I always enjoy going back there. The Valladolid stadium is already under renovation, it is old, many years have passed since the World Cup in Spain. But I am sure that it will be full, it will be a holiday for the fans. You know that the Spanish national team tours different cities and always plays in front of full stands. "Our team tried the same thing, but something didn't work out and now we're back in Sofia. Let's hope that next year we'll have games at the new CSKA stadium," said the former top scorer.