It had been almost 18 months since the Guns went Bang in Miami and Chepiga escaped with his bounty. The submersible was slow, but it was reliable, the track across the Atlantic was arduous, its frigid waters omnipotent. Natasha left the triumvirate during a stop over close to Gibraltar, she had business to attend to elsewhere, once she had brokered Chepiga’s passage into the Mediterranean. The final leg of the journey certainly seemed longer without her. The winter snow had not long melted when Chepiga and Stoichkov finally sailed up The Bosporus strait in early April 2024, hostilities in Europe had escalated since Chepiga left, and a friendly Black Sea harbour was hard to come by.
“Burgas in Bulgaria is best Ruslan, I have friends close-by we will be fine there. I will remain with the ship, you must go inland, to my father’s people in Plovdiv. They will help us.”
Stoichkov was weary from the journey but still had fire in his eyes.
“Make my team great Ruslan, make the people of Plovdiv proud, make them the envy of all of Bulgaria. I will guard your money with my life, send for me when it is time.”
Welcome to Botev Plovdiv!
Having taken the same MLS network save file and gone our separate ways I waited around 18 months in game for the right job to come up. I fancied a return to Eastern Europe so loaded up a few leagues (Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Turkey) and started to smash continue. Ideally, having experienced so much success in MLS, I wasn’t really ready to return to a life of mediocrity.
I quickly discounted Turkey as I want to go there in a main save soon, and nothing really took my fancy in Greece or Serbia outside Panathiniakos and Red Star Belgrade. In Romania I was drawn to FCSB, the chaos and arguments around who owns their history is something Chepiga would relish.
Preferably, to keep with the narrative, I wanted to try Bulgaria and bring “the gunslinger” Hristo Stoichkov with me. I have always associated Stoichkov with CSKA Sofia, but I was surprised to learn that as a boy he supported his hometown team, Botev Plovdiv, so either of these would be viable options.
The first side to come up on my rather small shortlist was…
If you are anything like me, before finally agreeing to take over a new club I do some background research on Wikipedia.
Botev Plovdiv is the oldest active side in Bulgaria having been formed in March 1912 and are named in honour of Bulgarian revolutionary Hristo Botev.
Botev, a teacher and a poet, lead an unsuccessful uprising against the Ottoman Empire in May 1876, Botev himself was killed by a sniper whilst surrounded by Ottoman forces on 1 June 1876 leaving the rebellion leaderless and a failure. During his life Botev had spent time in the Russian Empire (Odessa) teaching literature, and this tenuous link, along with his socialist ideology, allowed his image as a communist revolutionary, and national hero, to be built up by the Russians, in Bulgaria, during the 20th Century. There are a number of football clubs in Bulgaria that carry Botev in their name, along with street names, mountains, monuments, and schools.
The club itself have had only modest success over the years winning the league on two occasions (1929 & 1966/67), and the domestic cup three times (1961/62; 1980/81; 2016/17).
Second Phase
The Bulgarian top division, known as the Efbet League, consists of 16 teams who play each other twice in a round robin. Once this “Preliminary Phase” is completed the league is split into three. The top 6 sides enter the “Championship Phase” and play each other a further two times to decide the eventual league champions. The next five teams enter the Second Phase, and play each other twice more with the winner qualifying for the European Places Playoff Final against the side who finished third in the Championship Phase. The final 5 teams enter the Relegation Phase with the bottom two sides being relegated to the second division and third bottom entering a playoff with the third placed side from Divison 2.
Chepiga joined Botev Plovdiv at the end of the Preliminary Phase, an 8th place finish meant Botev would play in the Second Phase, along with Lokomotiv Sofia, CSKA 1948, Lokomotiv Plovdiv and Tsarsko Selo. The failure to qualify for the Championship Phase was enough to see their previous manager sacked.
With no threat of relegation, and the prospect of gaining a place in Europe far off, I decided to use this time to bed my 5-2-1-2 Samba Soccer tactic in with an eye on next season.
As I mentioned in my previous post I really enjoy the 5-2-1-2 and it once again did the business, this time in Bulgaria. We managed to win seven of our eight Second Phase games, only drawing the last game of the season after heavy rotation. Samba Soccer had arrived in Plovdiv and the people loved it.
We stormed past Lokomotiv Sofia to finish top of the Second Phase. This meant we had to play a one off final playoff against the third placed side from the Championship Group, Cherno more. The winners would qualify for the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League next season. We squeezed past Cherno more 1-0 thanks to a breakaway goal scored by speed freak Olakunle Olusegun.
Botev Plovdiv are going to Europe!
Just a quick update from me to bring everyone up to speed with my journey post MLS. So far I’ve enjoyed getting to know a new league and new players. In the next update I will go through my first season’s recruitment and talk a little bit about the squad as a whole.
Thanks for making it this far
Over and out
FMEadster!