Montana

Stiliyan Petrov left Montana's academy at seventeen for CSKA Sofia, then went further still, to Celtic and Aston Villa, and captained Bulgaria through what was then a national record of 105 caps. The town made him an honorary citizen in 2006.

The current club took shape on 20 March 1947, formed by merging several local sides, though some trace the line back to Botev, a predecessor from 1921. Home matches are played at the Ogosta stadium, which holds 5,000.

A ninth-place finish, reached in 1995-96 and repeated in 2015-16, is as high as Montana has ever stood in the Bulgarian top flight. The club has gone up from the Second League more than once, winning the western zone in 2008-09 and the league outright in 2014-15, and returned again after finishing runner-up there in 2024-25.

Its nearest brush with a trophy came in the 2015-16 Bulgarian Cup, where Ivan Minchev's hat-trick had already settled the semi-final against Beroe before CSKA Sofia won the final 1-0. Two decades earlier, in 1995-96, Montana lost another final, in the now-discontinued Bulgarian League Cup, to Neftochimik Burgas. Matches against Botev Vratsa, the Northwestern derby, remain the fixture that matters most locally.

No one has scored more for the club than Boyan Gergov, who managed 157 goals in 364 appearances and is still spoken of as Montana's own before anyone else who has worn the shirt.