The national and youth Bulgarian football teams suffered devastating losses in the Czech Republic on October 5 and 6 ending World Cup hopes for the former and European final dreams for the latter.

On Friday, the youth team was demolished 8-0 by the Czech Republic in Teplitze. The following day, the national team was downed 6-0 by their Czech counterparts in Prague.

The national team's senior coach, Stoycho Mladenov, said that he accepted responsibility for the loss, but also for the previous victories. "I believe in this team. The people that were selected in it are the best that we currently have. We cannot escape from the reality though - the Czechs beat us because they were much stronger," he said.

Midfielder Stilian Petrov could not explain the loss to himself. "We were well prepared and do not know how we reached this situation. Everyone is to blame, we were all very poor."

Bulgaria's best football player in 2000, Georgi Ivanov (Gonzo), admitted that it hurt him twice as much because of the spiritless play of the team.

After the game, the executive director of the Bulgarian Football Union Ivan Vutzov said that he was ready to resign. "We need to make changes urgently, it is indispensable," he said.

The top Bulgarian coach of all time, Dimitar Penev, who led the national team to the bronze medal in the U.S. in 1994, was very specific. "A lot of bad legacy has been amassed recently. It is high time that some people hide themselves. By now only a small circle was commanding football from a distance, and did not allow anyone else to approach the management.

"It is time that the state also helps sport. We do not have a Ministry of Sports, we are again late with solving major issues, and you have seen where this has led us."

The general attitude emerging from the management of the Bulgarian Football Union and the headquarters of the national teams after the losses was that life goes on. However, no Bulgarian has succeeded in making an impressive transfer to a big European club. Only Petrov from Glasgow Celtic is a leading player on a major team. The rest are either substitute players on European teams, or only rarely play, like Dimitar Berbatov in Bayer Leverkusen and Svetoslav Todorov from London's West Ham.

The 35-year-old captain of the national team, Krassimir Balakov, the last remaining member of the football generation of Bulgaria which won the bronze medal in the U.S. in 1994, is trying, for the third season in a row, to stay in the first Bundesliga with his team Stuttgart.

The situation with the youth team is even worse since almost none of them plays on a quality team.