{"id":23612,"date":"2011-12-29T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/12\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/"},"modified":"2011-12-29T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T16:00:03","slug":"french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/","title":{"rendered":"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div readability=\"7\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\" width=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span>Stoichkov led Bulgaria&#8217;s national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Bulgarian football icon Hristo Stoichkov accused a French referee on Thursday of robbing him of his childhood dream of becoming FIFA World Cup champion in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a child, I dreamed if becoming a football player, to win the Golden Ball, the Golden Boot. All of this came true,&#8221; Stoichkov told state BNT television in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My biggest dream as a footballer was however crushed by a French referee&#8230; I will never forgive him,&#8221; the 45-year-old former national team and Barcelona star striker said.<\/p>\n<p>Stoichkov led Bulgaria&#8217;s national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, a game they lost 1-2 to Italy.<\/p>\n<p>Bulgarian football fans have accused French referee Joel Quiniou of robbing the team of an equalizer in the second half of the game by failing to penalise a handball by Italian Alessandro Costacurta.<\/p>\n<p>The slow motion repeat of the incident toured Bulgarian television channels at the time, sparking nationwide anger.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He mocked me, the coaches, the whole Bulgarian people. I&#8217;ve met him after that game in the US and I demonstratively spit in his face,&#8221; the notoriously temperamental Stoichkov said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The legendary striker was awarded the Golden boot as the World Cup&#8217;s joint top goal scorer and also won France Football&#8217;s Golden Ball award the same year.<\/p>\n<p>He took up coaching in 2003 and is expected to be named head coach of Bulgarian Litex Lovech in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a92011 AFP<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Stoichkov led Bulgaria&#8217;s national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup Bulgarian football icon Hristo Stoichkov accused a French referee on Thursday of robbing him of his childhood dream of becoming FIFA World Cup champion in 1994. &#8220;As a child, I dreamed if becoming a football player, to win the Golden Ball, the Golden Boot. All of this came true,&#8221; Stoichkov told state BNT television in an interview. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Stoichkov led Bulgaria&#039;s national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup Bulgarian football icon Hristo Stoichkov accused a French referee on Thursday of robbing him of his childhood dream of becoming FIFA World Cup champion in 1994. &quot;As a child, I dreamed if becoming a football player, to win the Golden Ball, the Golden Boot. All of this came true,&quot; Stoichkov told state BNT television in an interview.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ghanamma\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-29T16:00:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\"},\"wordCount\":260,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\",\"name\":\"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov - Ghanamma.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-29T16:00:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.mtnfootball.com\/content\/photo_1325165207410-1-0_280x204.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/\",\"name\":\"Ghanamma.com\",\"description\":\"News In Ghana - Latest Ghana News Headlines\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov - Ghanamma.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/12\/29\/french-ref-crushed-my-childhood-dream-says-stoichkov\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"French ref crushed my childhood dream, says Stoichkov - Ghanamma.com","twitter_description":"Stoichkov led Bulgaria's national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup Bulgarian football icon Hristo Stoichkov accused a French referee on Thursday of robbing him of his childhood dream of becoming FIFA World Cup champion in 1994. \"As a child, I dreamed if becoming a football player, to win the Golden Ball, the Golden Boot. 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