The 2008–09

Bulgarian Cup The Bulgarian Cup () 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 tournament's format is ''single-elimination'', with all matche ...

was the 27th season of the annual knockout

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament for

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. The competition started on 15 October 2008 with the preliminary round and ended on 26 May 2009. The defending champions were

Litex Lovech FC Lovech (; formerly Litex Lovech) is a Bulgarian professional association football, football club based in Lovech, that competes in the Second Professional Football League (Bulgaria), Second League. The club was founded in 1921 as Hisarya Spor ...

, who successfully defended their title against

Pirin Blagoevgrad Football club Pirin (), also known as Pirin Blagoevgrad is a Bulgarian football club based in Blagoevgrad, which currently competes in the Second League, the second division of Bulgarian football. The club was founded in 2008, after a merger ...

and resultantly qualified for the

2009–10 UEFA Europa League The 2009–10 UEFA Europa League was the first season of the UEFA Europa League, Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA. The competition was previously known as the UEFA Cup, which had been in existence for 38 years. Spai ...

Preliminary round

Seven teams entered the preliminary round: four teams from the amateur level, plus three teams from the B Group. Six of the teams played against another opponent, while the seventh team, amateur side Almus Bier, received a bye to the first round of the cup. The matches were played on 15 October 2008. Of the professional teams, only Akademik Sofia lost, suffering a 3–0 defeat away to Slivnishki Geroy. , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 15 October 2008 Note: Roman numerals in brackets denote the league tier the clubs participated in during the 2008–09 season.

First round

The first round included the four teams advancing from the preliminary round as well as the remaining 28 teams from the B Group. The matches were played on 29 October 2008. Both amateur teams were eliminated in this round. In a close series of matches, five games went to extra time and in three cases the teams were separated after a penalty shootout. , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 29 October 2008

Second round

The 16 teams from A Group entered in the second round, joining the 16 winners from the first round. The matches were played from 11 November to 3 December 2008. Six of the ties required extra time, but no penalty shootouts were required. , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 11 November 2008 , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 12 November 2008 , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 13 November 2008 , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 26 November 2008 , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 3 December 2008

Third round

The third round was played on 7 December 2008 and featured the 16 winners of round two. The biggest win of the third round was

CSKA Sofia CSKA Sofia () 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 Sports Club of the Army'' ...

's 5–0 victory at Balkan Botevgrad. , - !colspan=3 style="background-color:#D0F0C0;" , 7 December 2008

Quarter-finals

The quarter-finals were held on 4 March 2009. All four away teams won their matches to advance to the semi-final stage.

Semi-finals

Both semi-finals were held on 29 April 2009.

beat

Minyor Pernik FC Minyor () is a football club in Pernik, Bulgaria, currently competing in the Second League, the second tier of Bulgarian football. Founded in 1919 as SC Krakra, the club's home ground since 1954 has been Stadion Minyor. The club's name comes ...

, and Pirin Blagoevgrad (1931) defeated

Levski Sofia PFC Levski Sofia () is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia, which competes in the First League, the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The club was founded on 24 May 1914 by a group of high sc ...

, in each case by a single goal.

Final

Last season's winners

defended their title with a 3–0 win against Pirin Blagoevgrad (1931) at the Georgi Asparuhov Stadium in Sofia. By winning, Litex Lovech ensured they would enter in the third qualifying round of the following season's

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

. The game was broadcast live on

Bulgarian National Television The Bulgarian National Television ( Bulgarian: Българска национална телевизия, ''Balgarska natsionalna televizia'') or BNT (БНТ), stylized as ·Б·Н·Т· since 2018, is a public television broadcaster of Bulgaria ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2008-09 Bulgarian Cup Bulgarian Cup seasons Bulgarian Cup, 2008-09

Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...