Belarus national football team

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

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". 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!"

Friendly match

Friendly match

Friendly match

Friendly match

Friendly match

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

Friendly match

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

Friendly match

Friendly match

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification

Friendly match

Current squad

The following players were named for preliminarily lineup for friendly match against Greece and 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Bulgaria on 9 and 13 November 2016.
Caps and goals are correct as of 13 November 2016, after the game against Bulgaria.

Recent call-ups

The following players have also been called up to the Belarus squad during last 12 months.

Most capped players

Currently active players are listed in bold

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.