Today, Vojvodina will play the second friendly match in the preparations in Slovenia. From 5:30 PM, the rival of the red and whites in Stojnci will be Maritsa Plovdiv from Bulgaria, the ninth-ranked team in the second league of their country last season.
Maritsa Plovdiv was founded in 1921 by uniting the clubs Vampir and Trite Konski Sili. In its history, the club spent only four seasons in the highest rank of Bulgarian football, and the last time, it happened in the 1996/97 season, which was also the most successful season in the history of the club, given that Maritsa came then and to the semifinals of the Bulgarian Cup.
The club is named after the river Maritsa, which flows through Plovdiv, a city in which the clubs Botev, Lokomotiv and Spartak have a more dominant football role. Maritsa performs at the stadium of the same name with a capacity of 5,000 seats and plays completely yellow at home, and completely blue away.
What is most proud of today’s opponent of Vojvodina is certainly the fact that the legendary Hristo Stoichkov, undoubtedly the best Bulgarian football player of all time and former ace of Barcelona, made his first football steps in their Youth Academy. As someone who was born in Plovdiv, Stoichkov started training football at the age of 11 in Maritsa, but he left to Hebros at the age of 16, from where he continued his great career.
As for the current squad of Maritsa, the coach of this team is 32-year-old Bulgarian Nikolay Dimitrov, who has at his disposal a team composed exclusively of domestic players, and whose total value is estimated at around 1.89 million euros.
In relation to the match against Borac, Vojvodina will enter this match stronger for Senegalese Yves Baraye, who joined the red and whites in Slovenia yesterday, but it is uncertain whether he will get a chance to play today. In any case, fans of the Old Lady and other football fans will be able to watch this match live on Novosadska Television, ie the Youtube channel of FK Vojvodina via the link:
