Belarus national football team


The Belarus national football team 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 Borisov Arena in Borisov. 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 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 joined the senior national team. With each subsequent head coach the team improved their attacking skills. As a result, in each subsequent qualifying tournament starting with the 2006 World Cup, Belarus scored more goals than in previous campaigns. However, problems in defense and missed scoring opportunities prevented them from finishing higher than fourth in the group. Some notable results during this period, included a high-scoring 3–4 away loss to Italy in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, another home victory against the Netherlands during the Euro 2008 qualifiers as well as an away win and a home draw against France in the Euro 2012 qualifiers.
Belarus achieved some success in minor tournaments. In 2002, the team defeated Russia and Ukraine to win the LG Cup. In 2004 and 2008, they won the 12th and 14th editions of the Malta International Tournament respectively. The first with its Olympic Squad, and the later with the first team.
During UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying, Belarus once again finished fourth in their group. However, with Belarus managed to top their group in the 2018–19 UEFA Nations League D, Belarus qualified to the country's first ever play-offs, and is scheduled against Georgia.

Home venue

The team played the majority of its home matches at the Dinamo Stadium in Minsk.
Occasionally other venues are also used: Molodechno City Stadium in May 1996, Vitebsky Central Sport Complex in Vitebsk in November 2005, Central Stadium in Gomel in October 2007, Neman Stadium in Grodno June 2009, Borisov City Stadium just a few days later and Regional Sport Complex Brestskiy in Brest in October 2009.
In late 2012 Dinamo Stadium was closed for renovation and the team started alternating between different home venues: Central Stadium in Gomel, Borisov City Stadium and Torpedo Stadium in Zhodino.
From 2014 until 2017 as well as in 2019, Belarus played at Borisov Arena. In 2018, they returned to Dinamo Stadium, which was re-opened after major renovation.

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 Federation announced that the national team's nickname would be the "White Wings". The name was influenced by the book The Land Beneath White Wings 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!"

Kit suppliers

Competitive record

FIFA World Cup

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

UEFA European Championship

UEFA Euro 2020 qualification

Play-off

UEFA Nations League

Recent results and upcoming fixtures

2019

2020

Record versus different opponents

As of 26 February 2020
TournamentGoals
World Cup Qualifying5813123361–97
Euro Qualifying6615133853–103
UEFA Nations League642010–0
Friendly108413434150–132
OpponentGoals
1264213–5
102086–23
91355–12
843115–5
82429–7
83057–12
73229–9
73136–6
72235–9
641113–7
622210–9
61236–10
52218–5
52218–5
52038–9
51045–8
50324–7
50234–10
50052–16
430111–4
41127–8
41122–5
40221–4
40225–9
40224–8
40043–11
40041–10
40040–12
321010–2
32104–1
32105–3
31207–4
31204–3
31114–3
31112–4
31022–7
30122–8
30030–4
30031–6
22007–0
21103–2
21013–2
21012–1
21013–3
21011–1
20202–2
20110–1
20021–4
20020–3
20021–6
11006–1
11005–1
11004–0
11003–1
11002–0
11003–2
11002–1
11001–0
11001–0
11001–0
10102–2
10101–1
10101–1
10101–1
10100–0
10100–0
10010–1
10010–2
10010–3
Total:2397361105274–332

Players

Current squad

The following players were named for the preliminarly squad for UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying play-offs semifinal match against Georgia on 26 March 2020 and possible final match on 31 March 2020, before the play-offs were postponed to October/November 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic.
Caps and goals are correct as of 26 February 2020, after the game against Bulgaria.

Recent call-ups

The following players have also been called up to the Belarus squad during last 12 months.
Belarus B national team has been assembled a number of times throughout the history to participate in occasional minor friendly matches and tournaments. The team typically consists of domestic league players who are considered a potential backup for the main senior team. The team was most recently assembled for participation in 2017 King's Cup in Thailand on 14–16 July 2017.

Records

As of 26 February 2020

Most capped players

Currently active players are listed in bold
RankPlayerCapsGoalsYears
1Alyaksandr Kulchy10251996–2012
2Alexander Hleb8062001–2019
2Sergei Gurenko8031994–2006
4Sergei Kornilenko78172003–2016
5Timofei Kalachev76102004–2016
6Syarhey Amelyanchuk7412002–2011
7Syarhey Kislyak7192009–
7Syarhey Shtanyuk7131995–2007
7Alyaksandr Martynovich7122009–
10Stanislaw Drahun66112011–
10Igor Shitov6612008–

Sergei Aleinikov has reached combined 81 caps and 6 goals for Soviet Union, CIS and Belarus during 1984–1994.

Top scorers

Currently active players are listed in bold.
RankPlayerGoalsCapsYears
1Maksim Romaschenko20641998–2008
2Sergei Kornilenko17782003–2016
3Vitali Kutuzov13522002–2011
4Vyacheslav Hleb12452004–2011
5Stanislaw Drahun11662011–
6Raman Vasilyuk10242000–2008
6Vitali Rodionov10482007–2017
6Valyantsin Byalkevich10561992–2005
6Timofei Kalachev10762004–2016
10Syarhey Kislyak9712009–

Managers

As of 26 February 2020
ManagerCareerGames ManagedWinsDrawsLosesGoals
Mikhail Vergeyenko1992–1994, 1997–199924261622–40
Sergei Borovsky1994–1996, 1999–200026491321–43
Eduard Malofeyev2000–200322105731–31
Valery Streltsov 200210010–3
Anatoly Baidachny2003–200522104834–29
Yuri Puntus2006–20071434719–26
Bernd Stange2007–20114917141865–54
Georgi Kondratiev2011–201428981137–35
Andrei Zygmantovich 201421013–5
Alyaksandr Khatskevich2014–20161866614–19
Igor Kriushenko2017–201925841323–37
Mikhail Markhel2019–83145–10
Total:1992–Present2397361105274–332