Dimitar Penev
Bulgarian footballer (1945-2026)
Dimitar Dushkov Penev (Bulgarian: Димитър Душков Пенев, 12 July 1945 – 3 January 2026) was a Bulgarian football player and coach who played as a central defender for CSKA Sofia. He was regarded as one of his country's best ever defenders, winning Bulgarian Footballer of the Year in 1967 and 1971. He played 90 games for the Bulgaria national team and scored two goals, participating in three FIFA World cups for his national team in 1966, 1970 and 1974. He was Honorary President of CSKA Sofia and semi-professional side Nottingham United FC.
Coaching career
Penev was manager of the Bulgaria national team during the 1994 FIFA World Cup, where his team reached the semi-finals and then lost the bronze medal game with Sweden. Throughout his career as manager he demonstrated excellence in both tactics and team psychology. Penev's most notable quality was his ability to work well with young players. During his career at CSKA Sofia he discovered a lot of previously unknown or little-known talented youths and used them as a basis for a domestically and internationally successful squad. Amongst them Hristo Stoichkov, Emil Kostadinov, Lyuboslav Penev, Martin Petrov, Stiliyan Petrov and Dimitar Berbatov.
On 30 July 2007, he was appointed manager of the Bulgaria national team for the second time. Last he was the manager of CSKA Sofia, but on 6 March 2009 CSKA fired the coach – the Bulgarian team decided to substitute him with his nephew Lyuboslav Penev.
The public source identifies “Dimitar Penev” as bulgarian footballer (1945-2026). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dimitar, Penev and Bulgarian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q562386. VIAF identifies the subject as 18032620. The Library of Congress control number is no98028954. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2026, 1967 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dimitar Penev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.