Stanislav Kostov ( bg, Станислав Костов; born 2 October 1991) is a Bulgarian professional footballer who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Pirin Blagoevgrad Futbolen klub Pirin ( bg, Футболен клуб „Пирин“), also known as Pirin Blagoevgrad is a Bulgarian football club based in Blagoevgrad, which currently competes in the First League, the top division of Bulgarian football. T ...

Club career

Pirin Blagoevgrad

Born in Blagoevgrad, Kostov began his career at Pirin 2001 as an important part of their youth team. In January 2010 he was scouted by

. Kostov made his first-team debut in the 2010–11 season as a substitute against Sliven 2000 in a 2–1 league win on 7 August 2010. He netted his first goal, as he scored the winning strike in a 2–1 home victory over Lokomotiv Sofia on 11 September. In the game, he also assisted Boris Kondev for the first goal and won the Man of the Match award. On 25 September 2010, in a home match versus Minyor Pernik, Stanislav scored the only goal for Pirin in a 1–1 draw. On 16 October he assisted Boris Kondev for the opening goal in a match against Levski Sofia, but Pirin went on to lose the game 4–1.

CSKA Sofia

After a good first half of the season with Pirin, Kostov caught the eye of the major Bulgarian clubs CSKA Sofia and Levski Sofia. After a tough transfer battle for the youngster, Kostov finally decided to sign with CSKA. He made 21 appearances for CSKA, scoring 3 goals.

Botev Plovdiv

On 22 June 2012,

Botev Plovdiv Profesionalen Futbolen Klub Botev, commonly referred to as Botev Plovdiv ( bg, „Ботев“ Пловдив, ) or simply Botev (within its associated city), is a Bulgarian professional football club based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, that competes ...

signed Kostov on a season-long loan deal, with the option of making the move permanent. On 10 August, Botev exercised the option to buy 100% of Kostov's contract. He signed a two-year contract. The following day, Kostov made his debut in a 3–0 win over Slavia Sofia, coming on as a substitute for

Vander Vander may refer to: Names ''van der'', a variant of ''van'' in Dutch names People * Christian Vander (born 1948), French musician *Musetta Vander (born 1969), South African actress and model *Roberto Vander, Dutch-Mexican actor and singer *Vand ...

. His first goals came on 24 November, in a 6–1 home win over FC Eurocollege in the Bulgarian Cup, scoring a hat-trick.

Beroe

In February 2014, Kostov signed a contract with

Beroe Stara Zagora Beroe ( bg, Берое) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Stara Zagora, that competes in the First League, the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The club was founded in 1916 under the name ''Vere ...

Pirin Blagoevgrad

Kostov returned to his home club in the season 2016/17. Scoring 16 goals in 51 games, he was the team's top striker and an unchangeable starter. During the winter break of the 2017-18 season he left for Levski Sofia.

Levski Sofia

After coming to Sofia, Kostov had a disappointing half a season in Levski. But during the second season of his spell there he started the season with 13 goals in just 14 appearances, the likes of which no other Bulgarian striker has done in the past 12 years since Georgi Ivanov, thus converting himself into a regular starter. Kostov scored 24 goals in 38 matches with Levski by the end of his second season and became the top scorer of the league.

International career

Kostov earned his first cap for Bulgaria on 16 November 2018, coming on as a late second half substitute for Simeon Slavchev in the 1:1 away draw with Cyprus in a UEFA Nations League match.

Career statistics

Honours

Club

CSKA Sofia * Bulgarian Cup:

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

* Bulgarian Supercup:

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

Botev Plovdiv *Bulgarian Cup runner-up: 2013–14 Levski Sofia *Bulgarian Cup runner-up: 2017–18

Individual

* First League top scorer: 2018–19

Personal life

Kostov became a father of a daughter in 2019.

References

External links

* *
Profile at Levskisofia.info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kostov, Stanislav 1991 births Living people Bulgarian men's footballers Bulgaria men's under-21 international footballers Bulgaria men's international footballers First Professional Football League (Bulgaria) players Cypriot First Division players PFC Pirin Blagoevgrad players PFC CSKA Sofia players Botev Plovdiv players PFC Beroe Stara Zagora players OFC Pirin Blagoevgrad players PFC Levski Sofia players Olympiakos Nicosia players FC Lokomotiv 1929 Sofia players Bulgarian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Cyprus Men's association football forwards Footballers from Blagoevgrad