The Belarus national football team

The Belarus national football team (Belarusian: Нацыянальная зборная Беларусі па футболе / Nacyjanalnaja zbornaja Bielarusi pa futbole) represents Belarus in international football and is controlled by the Football Federation of Belarus, the governing body for football in Belarus. Belarus' home ground is Dinamo Stadium in Minsk. Since independence in 1991, Belarus has not yet qualified for a FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championship.

History

After the split of the Soviet Union, Belarus played their first match against Lithuania on 20 July 1992. Before that, several Belarusian players played for the Soviet Union national team. The first FIFA-recognized international was a friendly against Ukraine on 28 October 1992, and their first win came in a match against Luxembourg on 12 October 1994.

Belarus have never qualified for either the FIFA World Cup, or the UEFA European Championship. Despite the lack of any significant success during the 1990s, some notable results were still achieved, like a home win against the Netherlands in the qualifiers for Euro 1996, and two draws against eventual runners-up Italy during Euro 2000 qualifiers.

Under coach Eduard Malofeyev, the team came very close to playing Germany in a play-off round to qualify for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, but were defeated by Wales in the last group stage match, missing the chance to overtake Ukraine, who drew their last game, finishing the group second behind Poland.

Their Euro 2004 qualifying campaign was very unsuccessful as Belarus lost seven of their eight games. Around the same time, a generational change occurred and a number of players from the U-21 team (which qualified for the 2004 European U-21 Championship) joined the senior national team. With each subsequent head coach (Anatoly Baidachny, Yuri Puntus and Bernd Stange) the team improved their attacking skills. As a result, in each subsequent qualifying tournament starting with the 2006 World Cup, Belarus scored more goals (total and a

This page also has a version in other languages :  Сборная Беларусь по футболу (russian)