Northern Ireland sank to their fifth successive defeat with a 1-0 defeat to Bulgaria at Windsor Park. Sammy McIlroy's team played some good football, but a combination of wasted chances and poor defending meant that the North have collected a meagre four points from a possible 18 in their 2002 World Cup Group Three qualifying campaign. Georgi Ivanov caught the defence off guard in the 52nd minute, running through to score the only goal of the game.
To compound Northern Ireland's woes, Neil Lennon and Keith Gillespie were booked and will now miss Wednesday's match against the Czech Republic. Celtic midfielder Lennon's second booking of the campaign was especially futile, as he was booked for stupidly kicking the ball away. Gillespie picked up his yellow card in the final minute, to cap a disappointing afternoon.
Sammy McIlroy's patched-up side, which was missing eight players through suspension and injury, started promisingly with Blackburn's Keith Gillespie tormenting the Bulgarian defence. The North were holding their own, following the traumatic 4-3 defeat in Sofia back in March and there was obviously some ill-feeling lingering from that game as Gillespie and Petkov briefly squared up to each other after a strong challenge by the Blackburn winger.
Goalkeeper Maik Taylor could do nothing about Bulgaria's goal as Krasimir Balakov's through ball caught the Irish defence flat-footed and Ivanov outpaced Colin Murdock and Aaron Hughes to score.
The North thought that they had grabbed an equaliser midway through the half when Stuart Elliott stole into the six-yard box to connect with Gillespie's header only for Zdravko Zdravkov to save his point-blank header. Bulgaria went close again, when Taylor touched Ivanov's drive around his left-hand post. Things are looking ominous for Wednesday's match against a Czech Republic side which is rated seventh as opposed to Northern Ireland's lowly 101st in the FIFA World Rankings.
Filed by Greg McKevitt
