Pirin will begin the 2020-21 season in the Second League on Friday, August 7, at 17:45 CEST. Our rival will be Hebar (Pazardzhik). The match at „Georgi Benkovski“ Stadium in Pazardzhik will be broadcast live on Diema Sport TV. Referee of the match will be Georgi Nikolov.
Preparation and friendly meetings
The Eagles held a training camp in Albena . As part of their preparations for the new championship, Warren Feeney’s players played 8 friendly matches. In them they achieved 4 victories, recorded 2 draws and one defeat as well.
The last friendly was played at „Hristo Botev“ Stadium against Arda (Kardzhali) and was won by Pirin with 2:0, both goals at this home game has being scored by Anton Karachanakov. The player with number 71 is the team’s top scorer during the preparation period with 4 goals. A total of 12 new players joined the team in the summer. Among them are the products of Pirin`s Academy – Nikolay Bodurov, Stanislav Manolev, Alexander Dyulgerov.
Team news
There are no fresh injuries. Martin Dinov, who continues to treat low back injury, has been out of action for a long time and is ruled out. In recent days our goalkeeper from Switzerland Francesco Ruberto has been training apart from the group, but he has joined the team for the journey in Pazardzhik.
A win against Hebar last time
Due to the break, cause of the pandemic, the two teams met only once last season. The match took place in Bratsigovo. Our team has won 3:1. Ivan Valchanov opened the score for our team in the 17th minute, Veselin Marchev equalized in the 32nd, but two goals from Ivo Mihailov between the 40th and 44th minute brought us the victory.
Hebar
The interruption of the championship last season in the Second League, found Hebar in 6th place in the table. The team finished with 10 wins, 3 draws and 8 losses with a goal difference of 35-30. At home, Hebar finished with 6 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses.
Nikolay Mitov: “I expect a quality match”
Hebar head coach Nikolay Mitov is 47 years old. Mitov is a former football player of Hebar, Levski, Academik (Sofia), Minyor (Pernik), as well as the German Magdeburg and Holstein Kiel. As a coach he led the teams of Septemvri, Pirin (Razlog), Montana and Levski.
www.pirinfc.com contacted Hebar’s Head Coach to find out his expectations for the upcoming meeting.
“I expect the match to be high quality, interesting and of course successful for us. Without a doubt an unpleasant moment for us is that for a long time no official matches were played. But we had time for longer preparation without playing official games. The goal of the team is to establish ourselves in Second League, playing good football. I wan’t change our style of play. My teams have always played open and attacking football. But the most important aim is to get the three points” said Mitov.