Player File #P00026Position: StrikerCareer: 1988/89—1999/00 · 7 seasons filedRetired 2000 (born 1967 in our file) · file sealed

Player File · #P00026

Kostadinov: The Summit Is in Porto; the World Cup Row Writes Him Back to the Start

Name: Emil Kostadinov · career attribute snapshot (1988/89—1999/00)
Creator: BallFact
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Case 013's Group D ledger credits Bulgaria's 6 group goals to 4 men: Stoichkov×3, Letchkov, Borimirov, Sirakov. BallFact keeps seven rows for Emil Kostadinov, and the two lists do not meet — not because he was absent from that tournament (appearances are not filed here and this page makes no such claim), but because the ledger puts his summit elsewhere: the unique overall peak of 85 belongs to Porto in 1993/94, where finishing (92) also tops out. On the 1994 row the overall reads 81 — exactly his first row of 1988/89 — finishing retreats to 80 (−12), off-the-ball 86 is the only cell in seven that is not 90, and both feet fall back to the figures of that first row. His shape is a body that holds for five rows and then breaks (DUR 82→42), while the World Cup row is the coldest cell in the document.

Ledger: 1988/89—1999/00 · 7 seasons Peak 85 at Porto 1993/94; the 1994 row reads 81 = his first row D-group ledger: 6 goals / 4 names · his absent Signed: Bong Weng · Archivist

PROLOGUE

Page one of the file

Emil Kostadinov, born 1967, a Bulgarian centre-forward, retired in 2000 by our file's dates. BallFact has filed 7 seasons: one at CSKA Sofia, two at Porto (Portugal), a 1994 national-team row, and one row each at Bayern Munich, Fenerbahçe and Mainz 05.

The entrance to this file is in Case 013's Group D ledger: Bulgaria's 6 group goals are credited to 4 men (Stoichkov×3, Letchkov, Borimirov, Sirakov), 3 of them to Stoichkov. Kostadinov's name is not on that list — and since this archive files no appearance data, that sentence is about goals, nothing else. The peak our ledger gives him, 85, is not at that World Cup either: it sits at Porto, a season earlier, where finishing (92) and goal hunger (94) also top out. The 1994 row reads 81 — exactly his first row of 1988/89 — with off-the-ball 86, the only exception in seven.

unique overall summit · Porto, 1993/94

the 1994 row · equal to his 1988/89 first row

the priciest cell · Goal Hunger (HGRL)

6 / 4

Bulgaria's group goals / names (his absent)

durability in the final row · file low (82→42)

PROLOGUE · One row that owns the whole summit

This file was opened on 2026-10-05. The most recently stamped thing in the same batch is CASE 014 (2026-10-08) — one audits a claim other people left behind, this one records the numbers one man left behind, and only one thing separates the two pages: the case had an opponent; the file has only a book. 7 rows × 44 columns (308 cells), calendar years 1988—2000, with 1990, 1991, 1998 missing even a row.

Start with the strangest fact in the account: That World Cup row hands back the numbers of his 21-year-old self. The 1994 row (league recorded as World Cup, club column empty) reads overall 81, finishing 80, goal hunger 87, left foot 59 and right foot 71 — all five of those figures identical to his first row of 1988/89, in a year when he was 26 and the file had already run 3 rows. Off-the-ball is the single exception in seven: 86, which is 4 under the value all six club rows share.

Of 44 columns, exactly 5 have a unique maximum in this file, and every one of those cells sits on the 1993/94 row (FIN, HGRL, LFT, OVR, RFT); no other row owns a single one. Another 30 columns never move at all. So the summit here is not "a slightly better year" — it is one year holding the whole mountain, while the year the world remembers him for is its foot. That World Cup row hands back the numbers of his 21-year-old self.

THE LEDGER

Year-by-year attribute matrix · 1988/89—1999/00

★ = the row our file marks as peak. This matrix is editorial derivation (L3), anchored on audited public results and this archive's own match ledger, solved from no game database. Heat shading only encodes absolute level (scale 60–99); the outlined cell is the single ≥94 one. The 1994 row is a national-team year, filed on its own per our convention. Per-season appearances, goals and standings are not held here, so the matrix omits and the prose never cites them. That the summit is uniquely 1993/94, that the 1994 row equals the first row, that OFF reads 90 in six rows with its one exception in 1994, and that DUR is constant at 82 for five rows — all four are machine-checked against the database; if any fails, this page is not allowed to exist.

Career attribute snapshot · Scale 1–99 · L3File #P00026⬇ Download this file's CSV dataset

Season	Age	MOBILITY				TECHNIQUE												PHYSICAL				DEFENDING							MENTAL							WILL				GOALKEEPER					OVR
		ACC	SPT	AGI	OFF	FIN	LSH	PAS	THR	CRO	SET	SHD	FTO	DRI	HEA	LFT	RFT	STA	STR	DUR	AIR	D1V	MAR	POS	AGR	ZON	INT	PRS	VIS	CMP	CON	LEA	STB	WOR	SHW	HGRL	WTW	DFZ	BIG	SAV	AER	CMD	DIS	ONE	OVR
1988/89	21	81	83	78	90	80	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	59	71	80	74	82	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	76	78	70	52	73	72	84	87	75	51	80	25	25	25	30	25	81
1992/93	25	81	83	78	90	84	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	60	72	80	74	82	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	90	79	51	85	25	25	25	30	25	82
1993/94	26	81	83	78	90	92	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	61	73	80	74	82	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	94	79	51	85	25	25	25	30	25	85
1994	26	81	83	78	86	80	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	59	71	80	74	82	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	87	79	51	85	25	25	25	30	25	81
1995/96	28	81	83	78	90	82	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	60	72	80	74	82	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	89	79	51	85	25	25	25	30	25	82
1996/97	29	81	75	78	90	78	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	59	71	80	74	68	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	87	79	51	85	25	25	25	30	25	80
1999/00	32	81	65	78	90	64	76	69	66	57	80	76	78	74	75	57	69	60	74	42	74	34	28	44	63	43	40	65	79	84	70	52	76	72	84	79	79	51	84	25	25	25	30	25	75

How to read this table? Look at the seam between row three and row four. 1993/94 gives 85, 92, 94; 1994 gives 81, 80, 87 — the hottest row of the file sits directly against its coldest. Then read the Off-the-ball column: 90, 90, 90, 86, 90, 90, 90 — 90 in all six club rows, the exception landing on the national year; left foot 59, 60, 61, 59, 60, 59, 57 and right foot 71, 72, 73, 71, 72, 71, 69 fall back in that same cell to 59 and 71, the numbers of his opening row. Finally Durability: 82, 82, 82, 82, 82, 68, 42 — five cells breathing as one, then a concession, then 42.

Shading = absolute level (dark at 60, brightest at 99)Outlined cells = the table's top value (≥ 94; 1: HGRL@1993/94)

Goal hunger (HGRL) · one cell out of 44 × 7 = 308

The top figure in the table, 94, occurs exactly 1 time in this file (HGRL@1993/94, goal hunger); the runner-up, 92, occurs just 1 time as well (FIN@1993/94 — finishing), on that same row. The row then takes the remaining unique maxima too (LFT, OVR, RFT), which is what "one row owns the summit" means here: nothing is shared.

Notice which column our ledger scores highest for this centre-forward: not the one describing putting the ball in the net (FIN 92) but the one describing wanting to (HGRL 94). Both cells are written at Porto, aged 26; neither is written at a World Cup. Goal hunger on the 1994 row is 87 — the same figure as at 21. That World Cup row hands back the numbers of his 21-year-old self.

HOW TO CHECK IT Verify "one row owns the summit" yourself: scan by column, not by row. For each of the 44 columns take the maximum of its seven values, then count how many rows reach it — only 5 columns are reached once, and every one of those cells sits on 1993/94. The remaining 39 columns either tie at their top or never move at all (30 of them are constant across all seven rows). After that count, the headline of this file is arithmetic, not rhetoric.

A height written only once is what a summit looks like.

SHAPE OF THE LEDGER

The hottest row and the coldest row, adjacent

Kostadinov · position-weighted overall (OVR) · all seven rowsScale 1–99

1988/89 · CSKA Sofia · age 21

1992/93 · FC Porto · age 25

1993/94 · FC Porto · age 26

1994 · national team · World Cup · age 26

1995/96 · Bayern Munich · age 28

1996/97 · Fenerbahçe · age 29

1999/00 · Mainz 05 · age 32

81 → 82 → 85 → 81 → 82 → 80 → 75: every figure pulled live from the stored per-season OVR (never hand-typed). The summit 85 is uniquely 1993/94, at Porto, and the very next row — that World Cup — hands back 81, the number his file opened with in 1988/89. The Fallen Stars series writes "never again"; this one writes "earlier already": the year our ledger calls his best is two rows before the year the world noticed.

Two generations of lines: the national-year cells (OFF/LFT/RFT) and the body (DUR/STA)Same scale, 1–99

OFF · the six club rows

OFF 90

OFF · the 1994 exception

OFF 86

FIN · 1993/94 summit

FIN 92

FIN · the 1994 national row

FIN 80

DUR · constant across five rows

DUR 82

DUR · final row 1999/00

DUR 42

The two lines break in different places. The technical cells misbehave on the 1994 row — off-the-ball 86 is the only figure in seven that is not 90, and both feet fall back to the numbers of his 1988/89 opening row (59, 71) — while the body (durability constant at 82 for five rows, stamina constant at 80 for six) snaps only in the last two. Durability loses 40 points across the file; stamina loses 20 in a single row. "That year" and "those years" are not the same event in this ledger.

Two figures · only one gets bookedThe counterfactual stays void

As filed · the 1994 national row reads overall 81, with finishing 80 / goal hunger 87 / off-the-ball 86 all under his club rows

on the book

Counterfactual · move FIN/HGRL/OFF from 1993/94 into that row → 84.5

+3.7, not extrapolated

The figure on the right was computed with this archive's own position-weighting formula (and we first proved the formula matches the stored book: it returns 80.8 for the 1994 row against our filed 81, inside the tolerance this script checks). It lands 3.7 above what was booked — and still below the summit of 85. This page does not adopt it. Three reasons, all recorded in the method box: the attribute arc is L3 editorial derivation, not a measurement solved from any engine; transplanting three columns from a Porto row into a national-team year produces not a season but a season that never happened; and the only evidence this archive holds for that tournament is Case 013's Group D ledger — 18 goals credited to 12 names, Bulgaria's 6 to 4 men, none of them him. We can compute the "if"; we cannot answer what he did there.

Refusing to answer is also a verdict. The number everyone wants — "what level was he actually at in 1994" — is one this archive can compute, can grade, and will not book. Two more refusals live in the same file: the gap years 1990, 1991, 1998 get no invented explanation (no row exists, so the page shows a blank); and the 2 stamps in our mark column (peak at 1993/94, valley at 1999/00) are not arranged into a storyline — this archive stamps numbers, it does not thread them into a downhill run on the reader's behalf.

That World Cup row hands back the numbers of his 21-year-old self. The sentence is awkward precisely because it cancels both ready-made stories: you cannot write that he peaked at the World Cup (the summit is 1993/94), nor that he was still climbing in 1994 (five of that row's columns equal his 1988/89 first row). The ledger does not clear the way for a narrative; what the narrative should now say is not ours to decide.

A summit you can compute is not a summit you may book.

SEASON CARDS

Seven rows, seven testimonies

1988/8921ST

CSKA Sofia, Bulgarian first tier — the first row: overall 81, finishing 80, durability 82. Three cells of the file are then empty (1989/90—1991/92 unfilled); this page does not fill them.

1992/9325ST

FC Porto, Primeira Liga. Overall 82: finishing 84, goal hunger 90, clutch 85 — three columns rise at once to the level they then hold. The file changes men here.

1993/9426ST

★ Peak · Porto. Overall 85 is the unique summit of seven rows and finishing tops out the same year at 92; the priciest cell in the table is goal hunger, HGRL 94. Our mark column stamps peak on this row — a club season.

199426BGR

National-team year (our file records the league as World Cup). This row reads 81 — identical to his first row of 1988/89; finishing 80 (12 under the summit), off-the-ball 86 the only cell in seven that is not 90, left foot 59 and right foot 71 back to the figures of that opening row. Case 013's ledger credits Bulgaria's 6 group goals to 4 men (Stoichkov×3, Letchkov, Borimirov, Sirakov); his name is not among them — and since appearances are not filed here, that sentence is about goals, not about minutes.

1995/9628ST

Bayern Munich, Bundesliga. Overall 82, 3 below the summit; finishing recovers to 82 while durability has not moved at all (82, as in the four rows before it).

1996/9729ST

Fenerbahçe, Süper Lig. Overall 80, finishing 78; durability concedes for the first time here — 68 after five rows at 82. The break in the body begins in this cell.

1999/0032ST

Mainz 05, Germany's second tier, the final row. Overall 75; durability 42 is the file's lowest (a fall of 40 from 82), and stamina 60 is the only row that is not 80. 32 years old, marked valley. Two cells before this one — 1997/98 and 1998/99 — were never filed, and no row follows.

MILESTONES

Seven things the ledger and the match file can point at

1988/89

CSKA Sofia, Bulgarian first tier: the file opens at overall 81, finishing 80. Three cells (1989/90—1991/92) are unfilled in this archive. (BallFact player_seasons)

1992/93

FC Porto, Primeira Liga: overall 82; finishing 84, goal hunger 90 and clutch 85 rise together to the level they then hold. (BallFact player_attributes)

1993/94

★ The unique peak season (our mark column says peak): overall 85, finishing 92, and the priciest single cell in the table, goal hunger HGRL 94. The summit is a club year. (BallFact player_attributes / mark)

1994

National-team row (league recorded as World Cup): overall 81 — equal to the first row — finishing 80 (−12), off-the-ball 86, the only non-90 in seven. Case 013's Group D ledger credits Bulgaria's 6 goals to 4 men (Stoichkov×3, Letchkov, Borimirov, Sirakov); his name is absent, and since appearances are not filed, that claim is only about goals. (BallFact player_attributes · Case 013 · L1)

1995/96

Bayern Munich, Bundesliga: overall 82, finishing 82, durability unmoved at 82 (fifth identical row). (BallFact player_seasons)

1996/97

Fenerbahçe, Süper Lig: overall 80, finishing 78; durability concedes for the first time, 68. The cells 1997/98 and 1998/99 were never filed. (BallFact player_attributes)

1999/00

Mainz 05, Germany's second tier, final row: overall 75, durability 42 the file low, stamina 60 the only row that is not 80. Mark: valley. (BallFact player_seasons / mark)

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE

Why the list and the ledger do not meet

BONG WENG Archivist

Put this file next to Case 013's Group D ledger and you get an unflattering but exact sentence: this archive knows who scored every one of Bulgaria's group goals, and cannot say how many this man scored — because the first is a match ledger (L1) and the second is an attribute file (L3), while the appearance and goal columns of his seasons stand empty. This page refuses to fill those columns with derivation: better a list and a ledger that fail to meet than a row with no source.

Within the file itself, the two most eloquent cells are neighbours. 1993/94: 85, 92, 94. 1994: 81, 80, 87. We are used to treating the year the world watched as the best one; this ledger prints its hottest row against its coldest. What makes the cold row stranger still is that it is not a decline but a return: overall, finishing, left foot, right foot, goal hunger all read exactly as they did in 1988/89, when our file has him at 21 (overall 81, finishing 80, left foot 59, right foot 71, goal hunger 87), and off-the-ball sits 4 under its own constant. That is an L3 reading of an L3 arc, not a match fact, and it is labelled as such. The body breaks later and far more bluntly: 82 for five rows, then 68, then 42. What stands is what the script confirms cell by cell — the unique 1993/94 summit, the 1994 row equal to the first in four columns, the single OFF exception, where DUR and STA hold and where they snap — plus one L1 count: 4 names, none of them his.

Whether this ledger bears any responsibility for his absence from that list — it does not. That World Cup row hands back the numbers of his 21-year-old self. That is a reading, not an indictment: 81 was his own starting figure in 1988/89, and the 1994 row merely walks back to it. Across the 7 rows Porto gave 85, Bayern 82 and Mainz 75; the World Cup row is nobody's number — it hands back a starting point. A ledger can write the road back; it cannot write why he turned around.

The chain: three ledgers of one year, two match files of one group

Case 013 tries "did Argentina fall apart when Maradona left?"; Case 014 takes all 18 Group D goals apart into 12 names. This file is about the man outside both lists. The two other 1994 ledgers run differently: File #P00023 (Brolin) breaks on the row after his peak, File #P00021 (Raducioiu) holds its unique summit exactly on the 1994 row. All of them meet at the "America 1994" focus page.

— Bong Weng · Archivist · BallFact

Note: club/league assignments, per-season attributes and the per-season annotation (mark) come from the BallFact database (both L3 editorial derivation); the 1994 Group D scorelines, scorers and attendances are taken from the published Case 013 and its public CSV, and every figure of that origin here is counted out of that file by this script, not typed. Appearances, goals and standings are not filed, so nothing is asserted about them — including negative claims such as "he did not play". Club honours, national-team cap totals and similar claims absent from BallFact-audited cases are neither used nor cited.

A match ledger remembers who scored; an attribute file remembers what he was worth.

METHOD

Data basis and confidence grading

L1 · HighThe published Case 013 Group D ledger (FIFA group table and match reports), recounted here by script: Bulgaria's 6 group goals are credited to 4 different men (Stoichkov×3, Letchkov, Borimirov, Sirakov); the final table reads 6/3 for Bulgaria; the two goals of Argentina 0-2 Bulgaria do not involve him either. This archive holds no appearance data, so all of the above are attribution claims only.
L1 · High (recomputed here)From the same ledger, the whole group: 18 goals across six matches credited to 12 different names (audited goal-by-goal in Case 014). Neither list — the group's 12 nor Bulgaria's 4 — contains Kostadinov; the script asserts this directly against the file.
L2 · MediumPer-season club/league assignments from our player_seasons: CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria), two rows at Porto (Portugal), the 1994 row filed as a national-team year (league = World Cup), Bayern Munich (Germany), Fenerbahçe (Turkey), Mainz 05 (Germany 2nd tier). The apps/goals/team_rank columns of those rows are NULL and nothing is asserted from them; no derived value is substituted.
L3 · Editorial derivationThe 43 attributes and the overall arc are editorial derivation (scale 1–99); the mark column (peak / valley) is this archive's own annotation. The load-bearing statistics of this page — the unique 85 summit at 1993/94, the 1994 row equal to the first (81), the finishing summit of 92 and its −12 retreat in 1994, overall, finishing, left foot, right foot, goal hunger — five columns — all equal to 1988/89 in that one row, OFF at 90 in six rows with its single exception (86) on the national row, DUR constant at 82 for five rows then 42, STA constant at 80 for six rows then 60, HGRL 94 as the table's unique priciest cell with the runner-up 92 likewise unique (FIN, same row), and all 5 of the 44 columns' unique maxima falling on 1993/94 alone — are machine statistics over that L3 arc; each is a throw-condition of this script. The counterfactual (moving FIN/HGRL/OFF from 1993/94 into the 1994 row under our ST weights gives 84.5, 3.7 above the booked 81) is declared and voided in the same breath: it is booked nowhere and carries no conclusion. The reading "the World Cup row writes him back to his first row" is our derivation, not a match fact.

SOURCE LIST

S1 · BallFact Case 013 public ledger /data/maradona-1994-argentina.csv (all six Group D matches goal by goal, the final table, timeline) — the only source of any match figure here, read line by line by this script.

S2 · BallFact Case 014 "Group D 1994: the hat-trick that was never his" — the attribution audit of the same 18 goals and 12 names: /truth/hat-trick-1994/.

S3 · BallFact Case 013 /truth/maradona-1994/ (the original trial of the match whose result put Bulgaria above Argentina).

S4 · BallFact Player Files #P00023 (Brolin) and #P00021 (Raducioiu) — the other two ledgers of that year: /players/brolin/ · /players/raducioiu/.

S5 · BallFact players database player_seasons / player_attributes (slug=kostadinov, 7 seasons × 44 rows = 308 attribute rows, all L3, including the mark column).

S6 · BallFact focus page "America 1994 · A Focus" — the entrance to the 1994 cluster this file belongs to (navigation only, no new facts): /american-summer/

S7 · Dataset CSV: /data/players/kostadinov.csv (per-season attribute snapshot).

← Another ledger of the same year

Player File #P00023 · Brolin

Who those twelve names were →

Case 014 · Group D 1994 attribution