Botev Vratsa

Vratsa's team goes into this season in the Bulgarian top flight.

The last deep run came in the 2024–25 cup, a semi-final — the third in the club's history, the previous two in 1961 and 1975. In the league, the high-water mark remains third place in 1970–71, the season that took the club into the UEFA Cup, where Dinamo Zagreb ended it in the first round.

Martin Petrov is the name that travels furthest: he came through here, and he is the player the club measures others against. The youth system also produced Ilia Valov and Valentin Iliev.

The green came later than people assume. Until 1971 the shirt was red and black vertical stripes; from 1972 green took over, and the lion arrived on the badge in place of a portrait of Hristo Botev — the lion taken from Botev's revolutionary flags. The supporters redrew the crest themselves in 2009. The nickname followed the colours: the Green Lions.

The derby is with Montana, an hour up the road, and it is known as the Derby of the North-West.

The ground carries Hristo Botev's name too, built in 1948 and rebuilt in stages — 2008, 2009, 2015 and again in 2022. Its nominal capacity is 32,000. For European matches, the figure allowed is 6,417.