The Bulgarian captain who bravely confronted his own fans has admitted: “I feel embarrassed.”
Bulgaria midfielder Ivelin Popov was praised for his “courage” by England forward Marcus Rashford as he went to the home supporters at half time and pleaded with them to stop the racist chanting.
It was a memorable moment on a dreadful night when Popov showed that the Bulgarian players were just as disgusted by the actions of some of their fans who abused England players with monkey chants, Nazi salutes and jeering.
Popov went to a pocket of Bulgarian fans near the dug-out to urge them to stop and, despite tensions running high as he spoke with them, the supporters in the ground responded and there was less abuse.
Popov, 31, spoke outside the stadium after the game and was clearly shell-shocked by what had happened and warned that it would bring shame on his country while insisting Bulgarian people love English football.
“Of course I feel embarrassed,” said Popov, who has won 88 caps for his country.
“We are 11 v 11, it doesn’t matter your colour, it’s no problem, we are all the same, we are one very big family in football, everybody and only we, if we are together, can we stop these bad things.
“It was important that I spoke like this because it’s a very big problem for everybody, for our federation, for England and if they said more bad words, even one more time, then maybe they would finish the game.
“We would have such a big punishment and this is no good for Bulgarian football because if some other players want to come here, they hear what is said and how they speak bad, then this is no good for everybody.
“This is normal because the first half was 4-0, they were very angry and were saying to me: ‘don’t speak to us.’ But when you start to speak to them, afterwards they understand. I think in the second half was better.
“I don’t want it to be like this, it’s not good for us, the federation and our country. How do I feel? I don’t feel good because we didn’t play well, we lost 6-0 and also this what happened was terrible.
“It must stop. In this country, we have a team like Ludogorets, who have players from every country, I never listened (heard) this sort of problem in the Bulgarian championship and I don’t know why they made like this because many fans are fans and supporters of English football.
“There are fan clubs from Chelsea , Liverpool , Manchester, it’s incredible and I don’t know why they made this. For me, it’s incredible, a surprise.
“In every big city they have fan clubs, like in Sofia, they have several fan clubs for every big club.”
