THE Bulgarian national football team was defeated at home by Croatia 1:3, losing any chance of qualifying for the World Cup 2006 in Germany.
As expected, Vassil Levski Stadium in Sofia was almost sold out and the home fans created a fantastic atmosphere throughout the game.
The Bulgarian team was more active in the opening minutes and had a chance to open the scoring as early as the second minute, when Dimitar Berbatov was just centimetres away from getting his head to a free kick cross from the left flank.
The home team had the majority in terms of possession and controlled the central area of the field, but could not create any clearcut chances in front of Croatian goalkeeper Tomislav Butina.
The visitors got themselves on the scoreboard with their first dangerous attack of the game in the 19th minute. Niko Kranjcar sent an inviting through pass to Marco Babic, who fired a low shot past goalkeeper Dimitar Ivankov.
In the next few minutes, Bulgaria showed little imagination in their offensive actions, with the best chance falling to Berbatov, but his header in the 30th minute sent the ball over the crossbar. The following counter-attack almost saw Croatia go 2:0 up, but Ivankov did well to palm away a Kranjcar first time volley from close range.
In the 34th minute Berbatov again was close to equalising the score, but Niko Kovac managed to clear the ball into the corner when the Bayer Leverkusen striker was just about ready to pull the trigger.
Moments later Berbatov was booked for dissent and will be suspended for the next game, against Sweden in Stockholm.
At the half-time break, Bulgarian head coach Hristo Stoichkov made one substitution, looking for more options in attack, replacing Georgi Ivanov with Valeri Bojinov.
In the 50th minute, Berbatov again was close to levelling the score, but he could not convert Martin Petrov's free kick cross from the right wing. Five minutes later Kranjcar missed a good chance for Croatia, firing over when left unmarked in the penalty area.
In the 59th minute the visitors took a two-goal advantage. They passed the ball well around the penalty area, Ivica Olic found the unmarked Igor Tudor, who had little trouble putting the ball in the back of the Bulgarian net for a second time in the game.
Valentin Iliev missed two chances to pull a goal back for Bulgaria, but in the 73rd minute Martin Petrov finally gave the home fans something to cheer about, curling a left foot shot from a free kick into the bottom right corner of Butina's goal.
The joy was short-lived though, as six minutes later Kranjcar rounded last defender Ilian Stoyanov and coolly slotted the ball past Ivankov to restore Croatia's two-goal advantage.
The visitors had little trouble holding on to their lead and made a big step forward toward their qualification for World Cup 2006. They will battle Sweden for the first place in Qualification Group 8. The Scandinavians achieved an easy 6:0 home victory against outsiders Malta, while Hungary displaced Bulgaria from third place after defeating 3:2 Iceland in Reykjavik.
"Bulgaria will not be going to the World Cup in Germany in 2006, but I do not think this is really such a serious problem. I am a bit disappointed, because some of my players did not perform according to my expectations. I am glad that 40 000 fans applauded the team even after the end of the game, these people give me a lot of encouragement that what I am doing is right. The Croatians played better than us and they deserved to win", Stoichkov said after the game.
"My team was very disciplined today, we converted most of our chances and that is why we won the game. The atmosphere at the stadium was fantastic, we had two great days in Bulgaria. Today we made an important step toward qualifying for the World Cup, but we have to keep up the good work in the following games," said Zlatko Kranjcar, head coach of Croatia.