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Bulgarians Deny Fighting After Sweden Defeat Two leading Bulgaria players have denied reports they were involved in an dressing room punch-up after the 5-0 defeat by Sweden on Monday. The pair, Predrag Pazhin, a Serbian who qualifies for the team by virtue of a Bulgarian passport, and fellow defender Ilian Stoyanov, who was on the bench, stressed there had been no rows or fights following their Group C thrashing in Lisbon. But that did little to dampen heated speculation among the Bulgarian media at the seaside hotel where those responsible for the reports thronged at a subdued news conference. Pazhin, who failed to stop Swedish striker Henrik Larsson scoring twice on his return to competitive international action after a two-year absence, twice made voluntary and deliberate statements to clear the air. "The reports in the Bulgarian press are not true," he said, through an interpreter. "There was no fighting between us. You can see that we are here together today. There are no problems in the team at all. "We are all together and we are going to play our very best against Denmark in the next game. This kind of reporting is bad for us and it is very bad for the image of Bulgarian football." Pazhin, 31, a widely-travelled stopper who has played in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey and China, is one of three players in the 23-man squad who can represent the national team through having a Bulgarian passport though he was not born there. The others are defender Zlatomir Zagorcic, 34, and forward Zoran Jankovic, 30, who are from Serbia and Montenegro. Pazhin denied there had been any kind of tension within the squad caused by their different origins. "We want to put this behind us and show people that we can play good football," he said. Stoyanov, trying to rebuild morale following a lengthy squad meeting behind closed doors at their Novotel base on Tuesday, recalled that Bulgaria lost their opening match at the World Cup in the United States 10 years ago but reached the semi-finals. However, they were then thrashed 4-0 by Sweden in the third-place playoff match. Who Are We ? | About THISDAYOnLine.com | THISDAY People | Contact Us © Copyright 2000 Leaders & Company Limited

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