site.btaGeorgi Asparuhov Ranks among 100 Best Strikers in Football History by SPORTbible

Levski and national team legend Georgi “Gundi” Asparuhov has been ranked among the 100 best strikers in football history by British publication SPORTbible.

Asparuhov, who is the only Bulgarian on the list, is ranked 78th.

According to SPORTbible, the number one striker of all time is Brazilian Ronaldo Nazario, followed by Portuguese Eusebio and Dutch Marco van Basten, with Gerd Muller (Germany), Romario (Brazil) and Thierry Henry (France).

Among active strikers, Uruguay's Luis Suárez was ranked seventh, followed closely by Poland's Robert Lewandowski.

Georgi Asparuhov was born on May 4, 1943, in Sofia. He was a youth player for Levski, where he spent almost his entire football career, except for two years as a soldier between 1961 and 1963, when he played for Botev Plovdiv, where he won his first trophy with the men's team in the national cup tournament (1962). He was three times Bulgarian champion with his home club (1965, 1968, and 1970) and three times winner of the national cup with Levski (1967, 1970, and 1971). He was Bulgaria's number one athlete and Footballer of the Year in 1965. He scored 18 goals in 49 matches for the Bulgarian national team, and participated in the finals of three World Cups (1962, 1966, and 1970). He died tragically in a car accident on June 30, 1971.

In 1999, he was named Bulgaria's best footballer of the 20th century in a poll conducted by the Noshten Trud newspaper .

On May 21, 2014, Asparuhov was posthumously awarded the Balkan Range Order, First Class, for his outstanding achievements in the field of sports. He was also posthumously awarded the title of Honourary Citizen of Sofia.