Belarus national football team

FIFA code

BLR

First colours

Second colours

FIFA ranking

Current

3 (24 November 2016)

Highest

36 (February 2011)

Lowest

142 (March 1994)

Elo ranking

Current

63 (12 October 2016)

Highest

47 (17 November 2010)

Lowest

122 (+?) (1997–1998)

First international

Unofficial:

Lithuania 1–1 Belarus

(Vilnius, Lithuania; July 20, 1992)
Official:

Belarus 1–1 Ukraine

(Minsk, Belarus; October 28, 1992)

Biggest win

Belarus 5–0 Lithuania

(Minsk, Belarus; June 7, 1998)

Belarus 6–1 Tajikistan

(Borisov, Belarus; September 4, 2014)

Biggest defeat

Austria 5–0 Belarus

(Innsbruck, Austria; June 11, 2003)

Belarus national football team (Belarusian: Нацыянальная зборная Беларусi па футболе; Natsyyanalnaya zbornaya Bielarusi pa Futbolie) represents Belarus in association football and is controlled by the Football Federation of Belarus, the governing body for football in Belarus. Belarus' home ground is Borisov Arena in Borisov. Belarus has not yet qualified for a FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championship. Since December 2014 the team is coached by Alyaksandr Khatskevich.

History

After the split of Soviet Union, Belarus played their first match against Lithuania on July 20, 1992. Before that, some Belarusian players played for the USSR national football team. The first FIFA-recognized international was a friendly against Ukraine on October 28, 1992 and their first win came in a match against Luxembourg on October 12, 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 qualification for Euro 1996 and two draws against Italy during Euro 2000 qualification.

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 7 of their 8 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 average per game) than in previous campaigns. However, problems in defense and a lot of missed goals prevented them from finishing higher than 4th in the group. Some notable results during this period included a high-scoring 3–4 away loss to Italy in a 2006 World Cup qualifier (the first time Italy conceded 3 goals in a home qualifying game since 1983), another home victory against the Netherlands during Euro 2008 qualifying as well as away win and home draw against France in Euro 2012 qualification.

Belarusians achieved some success in minor tournaments. In 2002 the team beat out Russia and Ukraine to win the "LG Cup". In 2004 and 2008, they won the 12th and 14th editions of Malta International Football Tournament respectively. The first with its Olympic Squad and the later with the first team (many starters were only available for the last game vs Malta).

Home venue

Dinamo Stadium in Minsk is the venue for most Belarus international matches

The team plays vast majority of its home matches at the 40,000 Dinamo Stadium in Minsk.

Occasionally other venues are also used: Molodechno City Stadium in May 1996 (friendly against Azerbaijan), Vitebsky Central Sport Complex in Vitebsk in November 2005 (friendly against Latvia), Central Stadion in Gomel in October 2007 (Euro 2008 qualifying match against Luxembourg), Neman Stadium in Grodno June 2009 (2010 World Cup qualifier against Andorra), Borisov City Stadium just a few days later (friendly against Moldova) and Regional Sport Complex Brestskiy in Brest in October 2009 (another 2010 World Cup quallifier against Kazakhstan).

In late 2012 Dinamo Stadium was closed for renovation and the team started alternating between different home venues: Central Stadion in Gomel (2014 World Cup qualifiers against Finland and France), Borisov City Stadium (friendly against Kyrgyzstan) and Torpedo Stadium in Zhodino (friendlies against Montenegro and Japan).

Since 2014 Belarus moved to the newly opened Borisov Arena.

Colors

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s Belarus played home games in all white, occasionally changing shorts to green. All green uniform or green jerseys/white shorts were used as away kits. Since qualifying campaign for UEFA Euro 2004 Belarus changed their primary colors to red jerseys and green shorts, and away kits to all white. In 2011 home colors were changed to all red. All-White became the home colour a short time later and now appears with the pattern on the Belarus flag, with the away kit being in Black in 2016, also using an adidas template and placing the flag pattern on it.

Nickname

In August 2016, the Football Association announced that the team's nickname would be the "White Wings".^[1] The name was influenced by the book The Land Beneath White Wings (1977) by famous Belarusian writer Uladzimir Karatkevich. The BFF’s new marketing and communications director, Uladzimir Berezhkov, said: "We are looking at various ways of establishing links with our literary heritage and cultural traditions", commenting that "If the Belarusian people opt to associate the team with Karatkevich, almost every phrase in the book can be used as a hashtag!"^[2]

Kit suppliers

Kit provider	Period
Umbro	2002–2004
Puma	2004–2012
Adidas	2012–present

UEFA European Championship record

Finals record		Qualification record
Year	Result	Pos	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
1960–1992	Part of Soviet Union
1996	Did Not Qualify	4	10	3	2	5	8	13	−5
2000		5	8	0	3	5	4	10	−6
2004		5	8	1	0	7	4	20	−16
2008		4	12	4	1	7	17	23	−6
2012		4	10	3	4	3	8	7	+1
2016		4	10	3	2	5	8	14	−6
2020	To Be Determined
Total	0/15	–	48	11	10	27	41	73	-32

UEFA Euro 2016 qualification

Main article: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying Group C

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Spain	10	9	0	1	23	3	+20	27	Qualify for final tournament	—	2–0	1–0	3–0	4–0	5–1
2	Slovakia	10	7	1	2	17	8	+9	22	Qualify for final tournament	2–1	—	0–0	0–1	3–0	2–1
3	Ukraine	10	6	1	3	14	4	+10	19	Advance to play-offs	0–1	0–1	—	3–1	3–0	1–0
4	Belarus	10	3	2	5	8	14	−6	11		0–1	1–3	0–2	—	2–0	0–0
5	Luxembourg	10	1	1	8	6	27	−21	4		0–4	2–4	0–3	1–1	—	1–0
6	Macedonia	10	1	1	8	6	18	−12	4		0–1	0–2	0–2	1–2	3–2	—

Source: UEFA
Rules for classification: Qualification tiebreakers

FIFA World Cup record

Finals record		Qualification record
Year	Result	Pos	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
1930–1990	Part of Soviet Union
1994	Did Not Enter
1998	Did Not Qualify	6	10	1	1	8	5	21	−16
2002		3	10	4	3	3	12	11	+1
2006		5	10	2	4	4	12	14	−2
2010		4	10	4	1	5	19	14	+5
2014		5	8	1	1	6	7	16	−9
2018	To Be Determined
2022	To Be Determined
Total	0/20	–	48	12	10	26	55	76	-21

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

Main article: 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group A

{{2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group A table |show_matches=yes}}

Fixtures and results

Recent results

Armenia v Belarus

25 March 2016
19:00 UTC+4

Armenia	0 – 0	Belarus
	Report

Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium, Yerevan
Attendance: 4,500
Referee: George Vadachkoria (Georgia)

Montenegro v Belarus

29 March 2016
19:00 UTC+2

Montenegro	0 – 0	Belarus
	Report

Podgorica City Stadium, Podgorica
Attendance: 5,000
Referee: Danilo Grujić (Serbia)

Northern Ireland v Belarus

27 May 2016
19:45 UTC+1

Northern Ireland	3 – 0	Belarus
Lafferty 6' Washington 45' Grigg 88'	Report

Windsor Park, Belfast
Attendance: 14,229
Referee: Martin Atkinson (England)

Republic of Ireland v Belarus

31 May 2016
19:45 UTC+1

Republic of Ireland	1 – 2	Belarus
Ward 72'	Report	Gordeichuk 20' M.Valadzko 63'

Turners Cross, Cork
Attendance: 7,200
Referee: Dejan Jakimovski (Macedonia)

Norway v Belarus

31 August 2016
19:30 UTC+2

Norway	0 – 1	Belarus
	Report	Krivets 56'

Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo
Attendance: 7,180
Referee: Mads-Kristoffer Kristoffersen (Denmark)

Belarus v France

6 September 2016
21:45 UTC+3

Belarus	0 – 0	France
	Report

Borisov Arena, Borisov
Attendance: 12,920
Referee: Ovidiu Hațegan (Romania)

Netherlands v Belarus

7 October 2016
21:45 UTC+3

Netherlands	4 – 1	Belarus
Promes 15', 31' Klaassen 56' Janssen 64'	Report	Ryas 47'

De Kuip, Rotterdam
Attendance: 41,840
Referee: Craig Thomson (Scotland)

Belarus v Luxembourg

10 October 2016
21:45 UTC+3

Belarus	1 – 1	Luxembourg
Savitski 80'	Report	Joachim 85'

Borisov Arena, Borisov
Attendance: 9,011
Referee: Tobias Welz (Germany)

Greece v Belarus

9 November 2016
22:15 UTC+3

Greece	0 – 1	Belarus
	Report	Palitsevich 14'

Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus
Attendance: 3,108
Referee: Craig Pawson (England)

Bulgaria v Belarus

13 November 2016
20:00 UTC+3

Bulgaria	1 – 0	Belarus
I. Popov 10'	Report

Vasil Levski National Stadium, Sofia
Attendance: 2,000
Referee: Stephan Klossner (Switzerland)

Upcoming fixtures

Sweden v Belarus

25 March 2017
20:00 UTC+3

Sweden	–	Belarus

Friends Arena, Solna

Belarus v Bulgaria

9 June 2017
21:45 UTC+3

Belarus	–	Bulgaria

Stade Josy Barthel, Luxembourg City

Luxembourg v Belarus

31 August 2017
21:45 UTC+3

Luxembourg	–	Belarus

Belarus v Sweden

3 September 2017
19:00 UTC+3

Belarus	–	Sweden

Belarus v Netherlands

7 October 2017
21:45 UTC+3

Belarus	–	Netherlands