Bulgaria lost 0:2 to Turkey in a match from the 5th round of the World Cup qualifiers in Group E of the “Europe“ zone. For the first time in these qualifiers we fell by less than three goals and had our most acceptable performance since the beginning of the campaign, although the Turks did not seem particularly motivated to seek a decisive victory, writes "Tema sport".
The coach Alexander Dimitrov made his debut against Turkey in the 1:6 loss in Sofia, and in the third consecutive match under his leadership, the tricolors scored an own goal.
At “Vasil Levski“ Viktor Popov (49) scored an own goal, which returned the lead to Turkey, after Radi Kirilov had previously equalized.
In Valladolid, debutant Atanas Chernev (79) scored his own goal, increasing the score to 3:0 for Spain in our 0:4 loss. Yesterday, Chernev had a bad luck in his second match for the national team, after he scored the final 2:0 for Turkey in the 83rd minute.
However, the Estrela Amardora footballer is not the only one with two own goals in the qualifiers from the “Europe“ zone. Cristian Garcia from Andorra has the same “asset“. The Santa Coloma centre-back scored in the away win over England (0:2) and the home loss to Serbia (1:3). While Chernev's goals simply increased the opponents' lead, Garcia's own goals were more crucial to the development of the matches.
At “Villa Park“ Garcia opened the scoring for England in the 25th minute, and against Serbia he equalized for 1:1 in the 19th, just two minutes after Guillem Lopez's goal for the hosts. Garcia was not in Andorra's group for their last match - the 0:1 loss to Albania.
Antonijs Chernomordijs' performance from Latvia against Albania (1:1) should also be noted. In the 29th minute, the ball ricocheted off him after the goalkeeper's intervention and entered the Latvian net, but in the added time of the first half, Chernomordijs got revenge with an equalizer.
Bulgaria is the team No. 1 in own goals - 3 out of a total of 22 in the qualifiers. Italy, Israel, Latvia, Andorra and Montenegro have two own goals each.
Regarding the goals in our own goal, the coach Alexander Dimitrov said that the team is facing a “problem”. So far, our own goals are three times more than those scored in the right direction - apart from Radi Kirilov's goal against Turkey, we have no others. On Tuesday, we have a final and practically protocol match against Georgia of “Vasil Levski”. Let's hope that we can at least equalize the goals-own goals ratio, and why not turn the numbers in our favor.