Ivan Georgiev Zafirov ( bg, Иван Георгиев Зафиpoв; born 30 December 1947) is a former

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 ...

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, rugby ...

who played as a defender.

Career

After short spells at

Sliven Sliven ( bg, Сливен ) is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality in Northern Thrace. Sliven is famous for its heroic Haiduts who fought against the Ottoman Turk ...

, it was with

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 ...

that he found his spiritual home in the 1970s. Zafirov, a right-back, played 340 times for the ''Reds'', scoring 8 goals. Nine Bulgarian championships and five

Bulgarian Cup The Bulgarian Cup ( bg, Купа на България, Kupa na Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian annual football competition. It is the country's main cup competition and all officially registered Bulgarian football teams take part in it. The tournamen ...

s tell the tale of how successful Zafirov was. Zafirov was on Bulgaria's roster for the 1974

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

. He represented the ''Lions'' 50 times, scoring once. He also won a silver medal at the

1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...

.Ivan Zafirov
. sports-reference.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zafirov, Ivan 1947 births Living people Footballers from Sofia Bulgarian men's footballers Bulgaria men's international footballers PFC CSKA Sofia players OFC Sliven 2000 players First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players 1974 FIFA World Cup players Footballers at the 1968 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Bulgaria Olympic silver medalists for Bulgaria Olympic medalists in football Medalists at the 1968 Summer Olympics Men's association football defenders