one of ofc pirin blagoevgrad's predecessors, fc pirin, was founded in 1922. fc pirin has played more than 20 seasons in the top flight and has competed twice in the european football competitions with one participation in the uefa cup and one participation in the cup winners' cup respectively. the club's first participation in the uefa tournaments was not promising. in 1985, pirin faced the then reigning swedish champion hammarby if. the first game in blagoevgrad, ended with a 1–3 loss. the second game in sweden was also a defeat – 0–4 and pirin were out of the european competitions. pirin's best season in the bulgarian top division was in the 1984–85 season, where they finished at 5th place at the end of the season. the club was also three times runner-up of the bulgarian cup. also, pirin's youth academy is attributed as being one of the best developers of young and unknown players in bulgaria. among the club's famous players are dimitar berbatov, spas delev, petar mihtarski, ivaylo andonov, ivan cvetkov, vladislav zlatinov and petar zlatinov.