Dimitar Berbatov

Great ability, great skills; he will probably be a perfect No 9 soon.

Dimitar Berbatov (born January 30, 1981 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian footballer who plays as a striker for English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur and Bulgaria.
Berbatov was born in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. His father was a professional footballer with local outfit Pirin Blagoevgrad, and his mother Margarita was a handball player.His career began at the same club, and continued until he was spotted by legendary scout and coach Dimitar Penev and, only 17, he moved to one of the most successful Bulgarian clubs CSKA Sofia following in the footsteps of his father, Ivan, who also played for the club as a left winger and later as a defender. He played for CSKA in the Bulgarian A PFG between 1998 and January 2001 making his debut as an 18-year-old in the 1998-99 season. He started to make his name the following year when he scored 14 goals in 27 league games and won the Bulgarian National Cup in 1999. However, Berbatov did not enjoy a good relationship with the fans of the club. He was seen to have missed chances in crucial games, one example being in May 2000 when CSKA lost to arch rivals Levski and also lost the title. Things went sour further after CSKA started the new season with scoreless draw against Litex Lovech. The fans were further enraged blaming the misfiring youngster for the early exit in the UEFA Cup against MTK. Worried about her son's safety Berbatov's mother made a public appeal to the most radical fans.
A run of nine goals in 11 games in 2000/01 was enough to persuade Bayer Leverkusen to sign Berbatov in January 2001. Berbatov had a slow start to his Leverkusen career with just 16 goals in his first 67 appearances for the club. He did however play a crucial role in the Champions League during his first season with the club scoring a memorable solo effort against Lyon with an excellent bit of skill, as well as a goal against Liverpool in the quarter finals. He also played a part in the Final against Real Madrid coming on as a substitute for Thomas Brdaric after 38 minutes.
In 2001-02 Leverkusen were runners-up in the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal. During the 2002-03 Bundesliga season Berbatov established his place as the first-choice forward at Bayer Leverkusen but it wasn't until the 2003-04 season that he really began to shine scoring 16 goals in 24 starts. The following two seasons saw him go from strength to strength, netting another 46 goals including 5 in the Champions League 2004-05 raising awareness of his talent and generating interest from teams throughout Europe.
In May 2006, Berbatov joined English Premiership team Tottenham Hotspur for a fee of €16m (£10.9 million) making him the most expensive Bulgarian player in history, more expensive than Valeri Bojinov (€13m) and Martin Petrov (€12m). After being granted a work permit, the transfer was completed, and Berbatov joined Tottenham on 1 July 2006.


Tottenham
30 January 1981
Source: Wikipedia