Anatoli Aleksandrov Nankov ( bg, Анатоли Александров Нанков; born 15 July 1969) is a

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

n former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Career

Nankov spent most of his career playing in the

Bulgarian A PFG The First Professional Football League ( bg, Първа професионална футболна лига, Parva Profesionalna Futbolna Liga), also known as the Bulgarian First League or Parva Liga, currently known as the efbet League for spon ...

, but also had a spell with

GKS Katowice GKS Katowice (; GKS stands for , "Miners Sporting Club") is a Polish football club based in Katowice, Poland. The club currently plays in the I liga, after having won promotion in 2021. History In 1963 in Katowice a special organizational co ...

. On 23 July 1997, Nankov was involved in arguably one of the most dramatic matches in

CSKA Sofia CSKA Sofia ( bg, ЦСКА София) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia and currently competing in the country's premier football competition, the First League. ''CSKA'' is an abbreviation for ''Central Sport ...

's recent history, scoring twice to give his team a 3:1 away lead against

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n side FC Steaua București in the first leg of a Champions League preliminary phase match, but was ultimately

sent off In sports, an ejection (also known as dismissal, sending-off, disqualification, or early shower) is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending ...

and the

Romanians The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Romania ...

succeeded in bringing the score to 3:3. CSKA Sofia were eliminated from the competition after suffering a 0:2 home defeat in the return leg, for which Nankov was ineligible to play. He has been capped 17 times for the Bulgarian national team, scoring 1 goal, and played two games at the

1998 World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

, receiving a red card in the first match against

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...

, which ended in a scoreless draw. He acted as manager of Hebar Pazardzhik in 2005 and was later employed as the assistant manager to

Stoycho Mladenov Stoycho Dimitrov Mladenov ( bg, Стойчо Димитpoв Младенов; born 12 April 1957 in Ploski, Blagoevgrad Province) is a Bulgarian former football player and manager. Career Mladenov started from small teams like Dimitrovgrad an ...

at CSKA Sofia until March 2015. Following Mladenov's resignation, Nankov was head coach of the "redmen" in one match – a 0:0 draw with Beroe.

References

External links

* 1969 births Living people Bulgarian footballers Bulgaria international footballers Association football midfielders 1998 FIFA World Cup players FC Dunav Ruse players PFC Slavia Sofia players PFC CSKA Sofia players FC Lokomotiv 1929 Sofia players PFC Spartak Varna players Chengdu Tiancheng F.C. players GKS Katowice players First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players Bulgarian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in China Expatriate footballers in Poland Bulgarian expatriate sportspeople in Poland Bulgarian football managers PFC Hebar Pazardzhik managers {{Bulgaria-footy-midfielder-stub