Thousands of Ludogorets fans rushed to snap up tickets for their eagerly-awaited Champions League home matches when sales opened on Saturday, despite the cheapest seats costing almost half the country’s minimum monthly wage.

The Bulgarian champions, playing for the first time in the group stage of Europe’s premier club competition, are in Group B alongside holders Real Madrid, five-times winners Liverpool and Swiss side Basel.

Ludogorets are only selling ticket packages for all three matches. These cost between 147 levs ($96.43) and 256 levs while the minimum monthly wage in the European Union’s poorest country is 340 levs.

Ticket prices for domestic mat-ches rarely exceed 10 levs ($6.5604).

The Eagles, based in the small town of Razgrad, will play their home games at the Vasil Levski national stadium in Sofia rather than their 8,000-capacity Ludogorets Arena.

The club’s chief executive Angel Petrichev said the response of the fans has been incredible and predicted the 43,600-capacity venue would soon be sold out.

Not all of the home supporters will be there to watch the Bulgarian outfit, however, with many in the Balkan country worshipping teams like Liverpool.

Some fans are resorting to borrowing money in order to have the opportunity to see players such as Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard.

“I have no job at the moment but my friends gave me loans to buy a ticket and see my beloved club Liverpool,” 26-year-old Iliya Georgiev said. “I’ll be able to see Gerrard and the rest of the team and it’s just unbelievable!

“I’m not keen to watch Real and I don’t like (Cristiano) Ronaldo because he’s a former Manchester United player but I had to buy tickets for the three games.”