Celtic Player of the Day – Stiliyan Petrov

The Celtic Star

·27. April 2025

Celtic Player of the Day – Stiliyan Petrov

“Stan” is a regular pundit on television these days, and is as much loved by Celtic fans now as he was when he played for them in those momentous years when Martin O’Neill was Manager…

Shunsuke Nakamura and Stan Petrov of Celtic celebrate after scoring against Kilmarnock’s during the Scottish Premier league soccer match at Celtic Park January 14, 2006, (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

He had actually joined Celtic from Bulgaria as early as 1999, and indeed he won a League Cup medal in 2000 but it was only under O’Neill that he really flourished as a midfield player with loads of power, thrust and will to win.

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There were so many good players around that sometimes one forgot about Stan, but he was a marvellous servant to the club winning League titles in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006, the Scottish Cup in 2004 and 2005, the Scottish League Cup in 2000 and 2006 and 105 caps for Bulgaria, in spite of a bad ankle break sustained at St Johnstone in 2001.

Petrov got on better with Martin O’Neill than Gordon Strachan

It was no great secret that he got on with Gordon Strachan in season 2005/06 less well than he had done with Martin O’Neill, and he left in 2006 to rejoin Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa. Like so many Celtic players, he played far better for Celtic than he did for the team that he joined, but in any case, his career was badly disrupted in 2012 when he was diagnosed with leukaemia. Happily he recovered, but he never really played football again.

He remains a much loved Celt.

David Potter

*Article from The Celtic Star archives, celebrating the significant contribution to telling of the Celtic story by the late, great Celtic Historian David Potter. Also, this one from Paul Gillespie when Ange was still our manager,

Stiliyan Petrov: Cliques made settling in hard at Celtic when I first arrived…

Stiliyan Petrov arrived at Celtic Park back in 1999 under former Liverpool legend John Barnes, and the Bulgarian admitted that life was hard at first due to ongoing dressing room cliques and fights that made things awkward for a 19-year-old in a foreign country to settle down.

The ex-Hoops midfielder was speaking to FourFourTwo, and revealed that “internal issues” marred his initial spell at Parkhead that ultimately led to the departure of Barnes.

27 Aug 2000: Stilian Petrov of Celtic celebrates during the Scottish Premier League match against Rangers played at Celtic Park, in Glasgow, Scotland. Celtic won the match 6-2. Photo: Stu Forster /Allsport

Although he went on to star in a very successful Celtic team afterwards, Stan recalled how those early days were very hard on him but that he managed to see it through and reap the rewards for sticking it out.

“I couldn’t understand much of what was going on”

He said: “I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, due to the language barrier, but there was always fighting I could see little cliques and problems. He couldn’t control the powerful characters. It was John’s first job since retiring as a player, and a big one for him.

The former Bulgaria international also defended John Barnes, insisting that maybe the job just came too early for him in his managerial career and that Celtic consumed the novice boss. He said: “The team was winning, but we had many internal issues. The players weren’t giving everything for him. Sometimes a job can come a bit too early for someone, but that doesn’t mean they’re a bad manager.”

Better times were on the horizon however, as we all know the turn of the millennium heralded in a new era in Scottish football. The arrival of Northern Irishman, Martin O’Neill, from Leicester City, saw a complete reset at the club – much like the one we are presently seeing under Ange Postecoglou. O’Neill put demands on all of his players for success and Petrov revealed it was the character and unity which made that team so fearsome.

Martin O’Neill was clear about what he wanted

He said: “He was clear about what he wanted. He took the players he needed from the previous era – the ones with character, fire and quality – and built his own team. He brought in Alan Thompson, Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon, Bobo Balde, Joos Valgaeren – huge players for us. Martin knew how to build a team of warriors. We didn’t fear anyone; we played Barcelona, Lyon and Liverpool, and we weren’t scared. Teams feared us when they came to Celtic Park. We had such togetherness and we had winners, and we were hungry for success.”

Paul Gillespie

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