From The Guardian (UK)

By David Hytner (in Sofia)

Dimitar Berbatov is convinced that he will play in another Champions League final. The Manchester United striker hopes for a case of third time lucky, after defeat to Barcelona last month and a loss with Bayer Leverkusen, to Real Madrid, in 2002. "There will be another one," he said. "I know that there will be."

More immediately, Berbatov has another "cup final" in front of him and it is one his country does not want to lose. Bulgaria face the Republic of Ireland in a World Cup qualifier here tonight and they need three points if their hopes of ¬making the finals in South Africa next summer are to remain alive. "Our situation now is that every game is a cup final," said the ¬Bulgaria manager, Stanimir Stoilov. "We have to win this game against Ireland, it is vital that we do so."

Bulgaria are unbeaten in Group Eight, but they have drawn four of their five matches and trail the Irish, in second place behind Italy, by five points, albeit with a game in hand. As the campaign approaches its conclusion, therefore, Berbatov will find himself in the eye of a storm. His genius ensures that he polarises national opinion - he was heavily criticised by the Bulgarian legend Yordan Lechkov for his work rate against Italy last October - and he will be called upon to impose his languid style on the Irish tonight.

Berbatov, who has scored 41 goals in 67 matches for his country, is one of three attacking stars who will return to the ¬Bulgaria team after being out injured for the last round of matches, which produced a 1-1 draw with Ireland in Dublin and a 2-0 home win over Cyprus. Stoilov is happy to welcome back Martin Petrov and Valeri Bojinov of Manchester City but it is Berbatov who has drawn the photographers' attention in training and fired up supporters' debates.

His debut season at United has been closely followed here, his FA Cup semi-final penalty shoot-out miss against Everton and his appearance only as a second-half substitute in the Champions League final being two of the hottest topics. His fortunes have been met with bemusement and ¬confusion.

So does Berbatov have a point to prove? His Bulgarian team-mates think not.

"Dimitar has been criticised a lot in Manchester for the way he is playing but people forget that every player is ¬different," said Stilian Petrov, the Aston Villa midfielder. "They try to compare him to [Wayne] Rooney and [Cristiano] Ronaldo but they have a different kind of game. United have an exceptional talent in Berbatov, he has a great awareness for the game and they will see more and more of him over the next few seasons."

One of the main criticisms of Berbatov in his home country, where fans tend to look for flaws in their heroes, is that he rarely scores against the leading teams, for club or country, and that he can drift out of the biggest games. Some Bulgarians wonder whether he is the man to lead them to the World Cup finals, or if he is more concerned with his club career.

Such levels of expectation are heightened by constant comparisons with the great Bulgaria team of 1994, who reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in the United States, beating Germany in the last eight. Lechkov, who scored the winner against the Germans, is now vice-president of the Bulgarian Football Union. He is ¬organising a ¬celebration of the country's finest footballing moment early next month in Sliven, the town of which he is the mayor. All his old team-mates are invited, among them the goalkeeper Bobby Mikhailov, who is now the BFU's president.

Stoilov's team have plenty of talent but his challenge is to make them more than the sum of their parts, as his Ireland counterpart, Giovanni Trapattoni, is doing.
"We cannot expect Berbatov to decide every game," said Stoilov, "and we can't expect to go to a World Cup only with Berbatov. It's not been fair on Berbatov over this past year with the problems he's had with very high expectation levels, and now it's more important how the team is going to play and not only Berbatov."

Such a plea for perspective, though, is unlikely to touch a sell-out crowd at the Vasil Levski Stadium tonight.

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