
European cups

“Slavia”’s achievements in the European club competitions for the period 1948-2016
The European club tournaments emerge as competitions between the champions, cup winners and medalists of the European national championships. During the years these competitions underwent changes in their format but essentially the original idea was preserved. The oldest is The Champions League. It started in 1956 and until the season of 1991/92 was played by the principle of direct elimination in two matches on mutual visits. Only later the idea of playing in groups was adopted. The “whites” do not participate in the competition for The European Champions Cup (ECC) and the succeeding it Champions League. When “Slavia” won its first champion medals, the continental championship was not yet established. When winning its only post-war award, our country was with very low coefficient and the national winner played in the UEFA Cup.
The Cup Winners' Cup’s (CWC) life-span was from 1961 to 1999. Of course, the participants in this competition were the national winners or the finalists of the respective country. In this tournament “Slavia” plays its historic semi-final in 1967. This position remains the greatest achievement of a club of our country in European competitions. The record remains until today.
The tournament for the UEFA Cup was established in 1958. The participants in this competition are European teams placed in the top positions in the national championships. Initially the competition was called The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (ICFC) but since 1971 onwards officially bears the name UEFA Cup. Since the season of 1999/2000 the competition for The Cup Winners' Cup’s (CWC) is a part of it and now the trophy is called “UEFA - Procup”. Since the summer of 2009 the competition is referred to “Europa League”.
“Slavia” played 17 times in The European club tournaments and achieved the following results:
Season Rival Results Round
1963/64 "MTK" (Budapest, Hungary) 0:1 and 1:1 CWC 1/16 final
1964/65 "Cork City" (Eire) 1:1 and 2:0 CWC 1/16 final
"Lausannesport" (Switzerland) 1:0, 1:2 and 2:3 CWC 1/8 final
1966/67 "Swansea City” (Wales) 1:1 and 4:0 CWC 1/16 final
"Racing" (Strasbourg, France) 0:1 and 2:0 CWC 1/8 final
"Servette" (Geneva, Switzerland) 0:1 and 3:0 CWC 1/4 final
"Rangers" (Glasgow,Scotland) 0:1 and 0:1 CWC 1/2 final
1968/69 "Aberdeen" (Scotland) 0:0 and 0:2 ICFC Preliminary round
1969/70 "Valencia" (Spain) 2:0 and 1:1 ICFC Preliminary round
"Kilmarnock " (Scotland) 1:4 and 2:0 ICFC 1/16 final
1970/71 "Hajduk" (Split, Croatia) 1:0 and 0:3 ICFC 1/32 final
1972/73 " Schalke-04" (Germany) 1:2 and 1:3 CWC 1/16 final
1973/74 "Dinamo" (Tbilisi, Georgia) 1:4 and 2:0 UEFA 1/32 final
1975/76 "Sturm" (Graz, Austria) 1:3 and 1:0 CWC 1/16 final
1980/81 "Legia" (Warsaw, Poland) 3:1 and 0:1 CWC 1/16 final
"Sparta" (Prague, The Czech Republic) 0:2 and 3:0 CWC 1/8 final
"Feyenoord " (Rotterdam, Netherlands) 3:2 and 0:4 CWC 1/4 final
1982/83 "Sarajevo" (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 2:2 and 2:4 UEFA 1/32 final
1988/89 "Partizan" (Belgrade, Serbia) 0:5 и 0:5 УЕФА 1/32 финал
1990/91 "Omonia" (Nicosia, Cypress) 2:1 and 2:4 UEFA 1/32 final
1991/92 "Osasuna" (Pamplona, Spain) 1:0 and0:4 UEFA 1/32 final
1995/96 "Olympiakos" (Athens, Greece) 0:2 and0:1 UEFA 1/32 final
1996/97 "Inkaras" (Kaunas, Lithuania) 4:3 and1:1 UEFA Preliminary round
"Tirol" (Innsbruck, Austria) 1:1 and 1:4 UEFA 1/32 final
2016/2017 "Zaglebie" (Lubin, Poland) 1:0 and 0:3 Europa League 1st qual. round
Note: In every entry above the first result is the one in Bulgaria.
Balance
Tournament Participation Games Victories Draws Losses Goal Difference
CWC 6 25 9 3 13 31:31
UEFA 7 16 4 3 9 18:41
ICFC 3 8 3 2 3 8:10
EL 1 2 1 0 1 1:3
Total 17 51 17 8 26 58:85
Greatest Successes:
Semi-finalist: - once – in 1967
1/4 finalist: - once- in 1981
Emphases:
- “Slavia” play its first match in the European club tournaments on 2ndOctober, 1963. The debut is on the 1/16 final in the tournament for the CWC in Budapest against the strong at the moment team of MTK. The Hungarians win with a minimal victory – 1:0.
- The following players take part in “Slavia”’s debut in Europe: Stephen Pashoolov, Stoyan Aleksiev, Peter Velichkov, Peter Panagonov, Ivan Davidov, Peter Petrov, Michail Mishev, Emanuil Manolov, Anton Krystev, Alexander Vasilev, and George Bor. Gugalov.
- The first goal for “Slavia” is scored by Michail Mishev on 9thOctober, 1963 in Sofia against MTK (Budapest) – 1:1
- The last goal for “Slavia” in the European competittions is scored by Serder Serderov on 30th June, 2016 at home against the Polish team “Zaglebie” in UEFA Europa League first qualifying round.
- The player who scored most goals for the “whites” in the European tournaments is Iliya Velichkov. He scores a total of five goals.
- A total of 35 “Slavia” players score goals in the European competitions.
- Alexander Shalamanov is the player who participated in most matches on the terrains of the Old continent – a total of 21 games.
- A total of 139 players are part of “Slavia”’s team in the European tournaments.
- Four foreigner footballers play for “Slavia” in the UEFA competitions – the Brazilian Ruggerio Pereira, the Kenyan Aboud Omar and the Russians Nikita Sergeyev and Serder Serderov.
- “Slavia” is the first Bulgarian team to play in a semi-final of a European club tournament. This happened on 8thMarch, 1967. No other Bulgarian football team has ever outdone “Slavia” in this achievement. The semi-finals for The National Cups Cup against the “Rangers” (Glasgow) are played in Sofia on 19thApril and in Glasgow on 3th May.
“Slavia”’s balance distributed by countries is as follows:
Country Matches Victories Draws Losses G/D
Scotland 6 1 1 4 3:8
Switzerland 5 2 0 3 7:6
Spain 4 2 1 1 4:5
Austria 4 1 1 2 4:8
Poland 4 2 0 2 4:5
Wales 2 1 1 0 5:1
Ireland 2 1 1 0 3:1
Lithuania 2 1 1 0 5:4
The Czech 2 1 0 1 3:2
Republic
France 2 1 0 1 2:1
Cypress 2 1 0 1 4:5
Georgia 2 1 0 1 3:4
Croatia 2 1 0 1 1:3
Netherlands 2 1 0 1 3:6
Hungary 2 0 1 1 1:2
Bosnia 2 0 1 1 4:6
Germany 2 0 0 2 2:5
Greece 2 0 0 2 0:3
Serbia 2 0 0 2 0:10
Total: 51 17 8 26 58:85
Note: The results are arranged on the basis of played games and achieved results against the respective country. The countries are written in their modern names.

Standings
Team | P | G. d. | P. | |
1 | 26 | 63-13 | 66 | |
2 | 26 | 59-14 | 63 | |
3 | 26 | 37-14 | 50 | |
4 | 26 | 33-24 | 45 | |
5 | 26 | 44-29 | 42 | |
6 | 30 | 42-41 | 40 | |
7 | 30 | 32-36 | 37 | |
8 | 26 | 24-34 | 35 | |
9 | 26 | 22-37 | 31 | |
10 | 26 | 25-42 | 31 | |
11 | 30 | 26-38 | 29 | |
12 | 26 | 24-45 | 21 | |
13 | 26 | 17-38 | 21 | |
14 | 30 | 14-58 | 9 |