Mall of Asia in Pasay, Manila, has its own special buzz – it's not just a shopping mall, but a foyer to a volleyball arena, where drums thunder and voices echo, a mix of the smell of fried food, cold air from the air conditioning ducts, and that sweet tension before match point. In this temple of commerce, one of the largest in Asia, sitting at a table with two beers between us, is Borislav Georgiev – the boy from Dupnitsa, who today bears the responsibility as Qatar's setter, but in the past was part of Bulgaria's silver generation that in 2010 in Belarus promised to be the backbone of the men's national team. Qatar has just scored its first victory in the history of a world championship, and instead of staying in the locker room to celebrate with the others, he literally rushed to another hall, a 30-minute taxi ride away, to watch the Bulgaria-Chile match – because, as he would later say, "blood is thicker than water."
Initially, his words are hesitant, as if memory is stuck in the sands of the long years spent in Qatar; but the more he talks, the clearer the path becomes – from Dupnitsa to Samokov, where he settled because of his wife Dilyana; from Belarus and the silver, through the training camp with Rado Stoychev, where the chance never came, to that summer camp in Piacenza with Angelo Lorenzetti (and in the management – Hristo Zlatanov, son of the legend Dimitar Zlatanov), when for five days a dream opened the door and then slammed it shut. His narrative is even and calm, but it contains that quiet resentment, which no longer stings, but simply remains as a scar.
2010 was their summer – silver at the youth championship, a sense of direction and meaning. The plan was simple and, at first glance, clever – the core from Belarus to gather for the entire season in Levski, with training sessions that would turn talents into men, to grow together, not to be scattered. At the World Championship, however, fate intervened without any sentiment – a tough group with the USA, Brazil, and Japan, and Zlatan Yordanov – the engine, the boy with confidence and a powerful hit – was injured in the very first match. Against Japan, we led 2:0 and lost 2:3, and that evening, in that hotel bathroom, when he pressed the water button, his finger got stuck, his hand instinctively recoiled, and his nail detached – a scene he narrates almost without emotion, but the picture is so visceral that the reader feels the pain. Until the end of the World Championship, Bobby only signed the protocols as captain, and after the championship, instead of analysis and care, came the label: "this generation – they won't make it." Thus, hopes were dashed – not with arguments and work, but with sentences thrown over the shoulder.
The summer of 2011 brought a call-up for a camp with Rado Stoychev. The team was divided into A and B, and from B, boys were sometimes "moved up" to train with Kazijski, Zhekov, Vlado Nikolov – to feel the speed, height, and nerves of a real set. He waited for three training sessions in a row: the first, someone else was called, the second, again someone else, the third – he still wasn't chosen. In a friendly match against Iran in Arena Armeec, he got half a set – not enough time for evaluation, but a gesture for the protocol. Then – assembly in the "Slavia" hall, a brief "you are free to go," and everything ended without having begun. "If they had let me play and I had shown that I wasn't good enough, I would have packed my bag and left on my own, but the chance didn't come," he says, and in this sentence there is no resentment, but clarity: the system doesn't just make mistakes, it doesn't even check.
A second chance comes – Piacenza, summer of 2011. Angelo Lorenzetti leads the training sessions, and Hristo Zlatanov is in the club's management. Bobby is not a player of the team; he goes for a camp, which Italian clubs often do when their national players are missing. He plays three matches – against Cuneo, Ravenna, and another opponent, entering and driving the sets – not as a guest who came to go through the motions, but as someone given a chance to build rhythm, to take risks, to organize saved balls from defense into attack. Lorenzetti likesthe shortsetter, and through Nikolay Zhelyazkov in the winter comes the promise: "next week we'll send the contract." Five days later, the management changes the coaching staff after a home loss, new people arrive, they sign setter Lucas Kampa, and the contract evaporates. "Fate," Bobby says, but adds quietly, as if talking to himself: "In Italy, they let me play in three matches; here, I didn't even get one training session."
Then came that phone call from Ventsi Ragin (a teammate from Slavia and the "silver" national team, who now plays for Neftochimic), which sounded like an episode from an adventure series: a team participating in the Emir Cup in Qatar was looking for a setter for two weeks. He went, they beat a team with Osmany Juantorena in the semifinals, and they liked him; the summer passed in anticipation, September 2013 came the short dialogue: "Are you still interested?" – "Yes." – "You fly the day after tomorrow." In two days, he sorted out the documents with "Slavia," left, and already at the airport, he realized that another world was possible: an apartment, a car, a SIM card, pocket money, sneakers – not luxury, but a normality that said "welcome, play." He started at Police – a state team under the Ministry of Interior, with the status of a "resident" (de facto local, who does not take up a foreigner's quota). He plays, organizes the game, learns a new culture and another locker room where the only requirement of him is: to do what he does best.
After a second place in the championship in 2014, the offer came to change his sports nationality. Bobby took stock before making a decision – in Bulgaria, resentment from the federation and the label "nothing will come of him"; here – trust, a contract, perspective. He logically accepted the offer. According to FIVB rules, he had to wait two years to wear the jersey of the other country; 2016 was his first official match for Qatar – World League, level three, first victories, first newspaper headlines, first texts where the country's name and its volleyball came together in one sentence. And just when it seemed the path was clear, 2018 brought an absurdity: the squad could include up to two "foreigners" with non-Muslim names. Between him – "Bobby" – and a Serbian teammate, they chose the other. Thus, five years passed without a national team jersey – not because of form or injury, but because of a rule about names.
During these years, life permanently settled for him in Doha – Dilyana, his wife from Samokov, children Hristo (2019), who has a knack for football, and Boyana (2021), a home where Bulgarian is always spoken, and that dilemma familiar to many families abroad: English schooling, returning home someday, how not to lose the language and roots while moving forward. When he's in Bulgaria, Bobby doesn't go to "rest from the ball" – he goes to the hall and trains with Levski. From these training sessions comes his clear opinion of Stoil Palev – a boy who "grew a lot, a very accurate setter," who may not be Simeon, but "nobody is Simeon, because Moni Nikolov is extraterrestrial" – that profile who, with block, serve, and quick decision-making, changes the course of the set from nothing.
2023 brings things back to where his story always wanted to be written – under the spotlights. At the Asian Championship in Iran, Qatar wins bronze – the first medal in the country's history. In the semi-final, they take a set from Japan with Sekita, Ishikawa, Nishida, losing 1:3, and for the bronze, they beat China. The ranking pushes them high enough to make it clear they are in the World Championship; there, the historic first victory comes – the one after which he leaves the celebration and runs to the Mall of Asia Arena to watch Bulgaria–Chile. If you ask why, the answer is shorter than any explanation: "blood is thicker than water."
In club life, years in Police followed, one year on loan at Qatar SC, and since last year – a five-year contract with Al Arabi until 2030. Bobby smiles when it's suggested to him that at 38 it might be late for a setter: "there are people who maintain their level even at 41" – an answer that doesn't sound like an excuse, but like the experience of a person for whom the rhythm of the game is a profession, and the view of the game – second nature.
I'm unlikely to come play in Bulgaria at club level, because in the FIVB system I am Qatari and a club here would have to pay an international transfer to register you as a foreigner, Bobby explains the lack of prospect for returning home. And he is not immune to that cultural shock when he returns to his native latitudes – service without a smile, indifference, and all the small everyday annoyances that abroad are regulated, and here often depend on chance. Despite that, after the first year I will get used to it, at least that's what I've heard from Bulgarians who have returned home after a long absence, Bobby is sure.
And what remains of that "silver generation"? Some made careers, others scattered around the world, a third remained in the category "what if." Bobby doesn't seek excuses; he is one of those people who don't dramatize, but state the facts as they happened. But between his lines, differences emerge that Bulgarian volleyball should not forget: talent that does not get a chance, and for a country with 6 million inhabitants, that is an unnecessary luxury.
And again – blood is thicker than water. After Qatar's historic victory, he leaves the locker room, leaving the music and shouting behind him, and walks through the corridors of Mall of Asia to the adjacent hall. The drums are already beating, the voices of the few Bulgarian fans fill the space, and he smiles in that way people smile who have found their home far away, but have never left their real one. "It's not easy… especially when it's far away," he echoes the beginning of our conversation – and this time there is no sadness in the words, but a resigned love.
Thus ends his confession – not with an excuse, not with a reproach, but with faith in the game and the future of Bulgarian volleyball.
And at that moment, in the establishment next to the arena, I feel most clearly that whatever passport he carries, wherever he plays, Bobby Georgiev remains that boy from Dupnitsa who once brought Bulgaria silver from Europe. And he will remain so until the end!
