Levski Sofia
Also written as Levski.
The club
PFC Levski Sofia were founded on 24 May 1914 by a group of Sofia schoolboys and named after Vasil Levski, the nineteenth-century revolutionary. They play at the Georgi Asparuhov Stadium in the Poduyane district of Sofia, capacity 17,688, named after the striker who died in a car crash in 1971. Levski play in all blue and are known as Sinite (the Blues), Sinyata lavina (the Blue Avalanche) and Otbora na naroda (the Team of the People). Their rivalry with CSKA Sofia is the Eternal Derby.
Recent seasons
For most of the last decade Levski were the perennial nearly team of Bulgarian football while Ludogorets Razgrad won fourteen consecutive championships. Levski finished eighth in 2020/21, a low point. The finishing positions for 2021/22 through 2024/25 were not established in detail from the sources read here, though Levski were consistently in the upper half and competing for European places rather than the title.
Then 2025/26 changed everything. Under Julio Velazquez, Levski won the First Professional Football League with 70 points from 36 matches, 25 wins, 6 draws and 5 defeats, 71 goals scored and 25 conceded. The title was sealed on 2 May 2026 with four rounds to spare, after a 1-0 win over CSKA 1948. It was Levski's 27th Bulgarian championship and their first since 2009, and it ended Ludogorets's run of fourteen straight titles. They reached the quarter-finals of the Bulgarian Cup and were beaten 1-0 in the Bulgarian Supercup on 3 February 2026.
Honours and landmarks
Levski count 27 national championships, 26 national cups, 3 supercups, 13 domestic doubles and one treble. Only CSKA Sofia rival them in Bulgarian football, and Levski are the only Bulgarian club never to have been relegated from the top flight. No club-record win or record defeat was established from the sources read here.
Notable scorelines
The 1-0 win over CSKA 1948 on 2 May 2026 that clinched the 27th title after a sixteen-year wait is the one the supporters will bring up first. In Europe, the 2005/06 UEFA Cup run and the 2006/07 Champions League group stage are the reference points; specific scorelines from those campaigns were not confirmed from the sources read here and are therefore not given.
European record
Levski's best European season was 2005/06, when they reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, eliminating Auxerre, Artmedia Bratislava and Udinese along the way before losing to Schalke 04. That run, and the league title that went with it, took them into the 2006/07 Champions League, where they became the first Bulgarian club to reach the group stage proper. It went badly: drawn with Barcelona, Chelsea and Werder Bremen, they lost all six matches and scored a single goal across the group.
Since then Levski's European seasons have been qualifying-round affairs. In 2025/26 they were beaten by AZ Alkmaar, a tie that included a 1-4 defeat in Alkmaar, and their campaign eventually ended at the Conference League play-off round. The precise round-by-round sequence of that 2025/26 run was not cleanly established from the sources read here and is not asserted.
The 2026/27 campaign is already the best European run the club has had in twenty years. As Bulgarian champions Levski entered the Champions League champions path at the first qualifying round. They drew 1-1 away to Borac Banja Luka on 7 July 2026 and won the return 4-0 in Sofia on 14 July, 5-1 on aggregate. In the second qualifying round they beat the Romanian champions Universitatea Craiova, winning 1-0 in Sofia on 22 July and drawing 2-2 in Craiova on 29 July, 3-2 on aggregate. In the third qualifying round they beat Kairat Almaty, the Kazakh side who reached the Champions League league phase in 2025/26: 1-0 at the Georgi Asparuhov Stadium on 4 August 2026 through a late Serginho goal, and 1-0 in Kazakhstan on 11 August, Reinaldo scoring in the thirteenth minute, for a 2-0 aggregate win. Reaching the play-off round guarantees Levski a place in the Europa League league phase whatever happens next, which is already a first for the club in the current format.
Quotes
- "Много труден мач трябваше да изиграем днес. По различен начин стоеше съперникът в сравнение с двубоя в София, но това бе нормално, защото те бяха догонящи в резултата. Според мен спечелихме заслужено." (We had to play a very difficult match today. The opponent set up differently compared with the game in Sofia, but that was normal, because they were chasing the result. In my view we won deservedly.) - Julio Velazquez, Levski Sofia head coach, to BTA, 11 August 2026, after the 1-0 win at Kairat Almaty. https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/sport/1183693-hulio-velaskes-pozdravyavam-publikata-i-igrachite-te-me-nakaraha-da-se-gordey
- "Трябваше да поправим някои неща и да се съберем след проблемите в края на първата част." (We had to correct some things and pull ourselves together after the problems at the end of the first half.) - Julio Velazquez, Levski Sofia head coach, to BTA, 11 August 2026. https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/sport/1183693-hulio-velaskes-pozdravyavam-publikata-i-igrachite-te-me-nakaraha-da-se-gordey
- "Чистите положения се появиха и можехме да решим мача, но ако трябва да вземем предвид всички обстоятелства, без съмнение играхме много добре." (The clear chances came and we could have settled the match, but if we take all the circumstances into account, we undoubtedly played very well.) - Julio Velazquez, Levski Sofia head coach, to BTA, 11 August 2026. https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/sport/1183693-hulio-velaskes-pozdravyavam-publikata-i-igrachite-te-me-nakaraha-da-se-gordey
- "Поздравявам публиката и играчите, те ме накараха да се гордея с тях." (I congratulate the supporters and the players; they made me proud of them.) - Julio Velazquez, Levski Sofia head coach, to BTA, 11 August 2026. https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/sport/1183693-hulio-velaskes-pozdravyavam-publikata-i-igrachite-te-me-nakaraha-da-se-gordey
Bulgarian outlets also reported Velazquez describing the qualification as "нещо наистина брутално" and saying the club would now aim for the Champions League proper; that phrasing was seen in reporting rather than read on a primary transcript, so the fuller sentence is not reproduced here as a verbatim quote.
Right now (2026/27)
Julio Velazquez, the Spanish coach who won the title, is still in charge. The summer squad work has been mostly free transfers and modest fees from the Portuguese market: Reinaldo arrived from Santa Clara for a reported 1.5m euros and Serginho from the same club for a reported 1m euros, both of whom have since scored the goals that carried the Kairat tie. Hevertton joined free from Queens Park Rangers, Alex Centelles free from Almeria, El Mehdi El Moubarik from Al Ain and David Kusso from Chaves for undisclosed fees, and Adrian Raychev came on loan from Pisa. Out went Carlos Ohene and Marko Dugandzic at the end of their contracts, Karl Fabien released, Rildo back to Santa Clara from loan, Preslav Bachev to Arda Kardzhali, and Georgi Kostadinov retired.
Domestically Levski have started the title defence perfectly: the First League began on 17 July 2026 and Levski have won all four of their opening matches, scoring nine and conceding two. Counting Europe, the unbeaten run stretched to ten matches by the time they went to Kazakhstan.
The European tie: Levski Sofia are in the **Champions League play-off round** against **AEK Athens**, the tie having been drawn on 3 August 2026. The first leg is at the Georgi Asparuhov Stadium on 18 August 2026 and the return is in Athens on 26 August. **The first leg has not been played as of 12 August 2026.** Levski arrive having beaten Kairat Almaty 2-0 on aggregate in the third qualifying round, 1-0 at home on 4 August and 1-0 away on 11 August. AEK have not played a European match this season, entering directly at this round as Greek champions. The loser of the tie goes into the Europa League league phase.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFC_Levski_Sofia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_PFC_Levski_Sofia_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_PFC_Levski_Sofia_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_First_Professional_Football_League_(Bulgaria) https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/results/_/id/490/league/UEFA.CHAMPIONS_QUAL/season/2026 https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/401902671/levski-sofia-kairat-almaty https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2049101--levski-sofia-vs-kairat-almaty/ https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/02a7-2133e87717bc-9913021d47f2-1000--uefa-champions-league-play-off-draw/ https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/sport/1183693-hulio-velaskes-pozdravyavam-publikata-i-igrachite-te-me-nakaraha-da-se-gordey https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/levski-sofia/preview/levski-sofia-vs-kairat-prediction-team-news-lineups_602305.html
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.