The Bulgarian national team at the 15-year victory over Wales at the tournament for the Development of UEFA after a penalty shoot-out, with the match ending in a 2:2 draw in regular time. According to the regulations of the tournaments in this age group, overtime is not played, but immediately goes to execution of penalty kicks. Bulgarian talents born there in 2010 were more accurate and won 4:2, BTA reported.
Both teams had lost their first matches at the tournament, which also features Spain and Iceland. The Bulgarians were decisively outplayed 0:9 by Spain, and this result caused the reaction of the president of the Bulgarian Football Union (BFS) Georgi Ivanov, who fired the selector Vladislav Vutov from his post. Vutov himself was at the match with Wales today as a spectator, and the team was led by Todor Simov, who otherwise leads the under-19 team.
Wales lost 1:3 in their first match against Iceland. The Icelanders and Spain will meet today after lunch in a second meeting for these countries. Today's meeting between the 15-year-old teams of Bulgaria and Wales took place with a split dominance and not only the goals were equal, but also almost all indicators of the statistics.
The first opportunity was for Bulgaria in the 17th minute after a breakthrough and shot by Denislav Kostov, and after that the guests also had a good attack. In the 24th minute, Bulgaria took the lead through Iliya Antonov. The midfielder of Akademik (Plovdiv) met a ball deflected after a corner about 10 meters from the goal and with a powerful shot he did not leave a chance to the goalkeeper Oscar Hatton. But after only three minutes and the Welsh reached a goal. George Williams burst in from the right at speed and scored with a diagonal shot. This goal gave the British squad momentum and by the end of the first half they had two more chances missed by George Thomas and Bobby Lewis.
The second half started with a more active game from Bulgaria, as two breaks from the left by Kaloyan Nedev were not completed by his teammates. However, in the 53rd minute, Wales went ahead with a goal by the strong Ralphie Beckwith, who received the ball on the edge of the penalty area and scored with an accurate shot.
After the 70th minute, the Bulgarian team dominated and created several very good attacks in which they were close to a goal. And it happened in the 84th minute when Yavor Krastev equalized directly from a corner kick. Before that, Denislav Dimitrov could have scored, but his shot from 10 meters went into the corner in question after a Welsh defender lay down in front of the ball and took it out of bounds.
According to regulation, penalties were immediately taken, with the Bulgarians scoring the first three through Martin Kuzmanov, Nikolay Nedelchev and Alexander Todorov. For Wales, Paul Moreno sent the ball over the crossbar and Theo Harrington was on target with the second attempt. The third penalty shot by Axel Donchev was saved by goalkeeper Alek Zdravkov. After that, Krasimir Yanakiev also missed, and Wales reduced to 2:3. But a precise shot by Vitomir Todorov guaranteed the success of the Bulgarian boys.
Bulgaria squad: Alek Zdravkov, Anton Daskalov, Vitomir Todorov, Martin Kuzmanov, Iliya Antonov, Denislav Kostov, Kristian Mitrushev, Kaloyan Nedev, Manol Danchev, Alexander Nikolov, Denislav Dimitrov (second half: Alexander Todorov, Krasen Krumov, Nikolay Nedelchev, Yavor Krastev, Rosen Ivanov, Vladimir Rechev, Maxim Dimitrov)