Belarus national football team

After the split of the Soviet Union, Belarus played their first match against Lithuania on 20 July 1992.[4] 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 (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 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 (the first time Italy conceded 3 goals in a home qualifying game since 1983), 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 (many starters were only available for the last game against Malta).

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.

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

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 (friendly against Azerbaijan), Vitebsky Central Sport Complex in Vitebsk in November 2005 (friendly against Latvia), Central Stadium 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 qualifier against Kazakhstan).

In late 2012 Dinamo Stadium was closed for renovation and the team started alternating between different home venues: Central Stadium 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).

From 2014 until 2017 as well as in 2019 (UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying against Germany and Northern Ireland), Belarus played at Borisov Arena. In 2018, they returned to Dinamo Stadium, which was re-opened after major renovation.

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.

In August 2016, the Football Federation announced that the national team's nickname would be the "White Wings".[5] 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!"[6]

As of 26 February 2020

Tournament	Pld	W	D	L	Goals
World Cup Qualifying	58	13	12	33	61–97
Euro Qualifying	66	15	13	38	53–103
UEFA Nations League	6	4	2	0	10–0
Friendly	108	41	34	34	150–132
Opponent	Pld	W	D	L	Goals
Luxembourg	12	6	4	2	13–5
Netherlands	10	2	0	8	6–23
Ukraine	9	1	3	5	5–12
Lithuania	8	4	3	1	15–5
Moldova	8	2	4	2	9–7
Bulgaria	8	3	0	5	7–12
Armenia	7	3	2	2	9–9
Estonia	7	3	1	3	6–6
Norway	7	2	2	3	5–9
Latvia	6	4	1	1	13–7
Poland	6	2	2	2	10–9
France	6	1	2	3	6–10
Albania	5	2	2	1	8–5
Slovenia	5	2	2	1	8–5
Israel	5	2	0	3	8–9
Wales	5	1	0	4	5–8
Finland	5	0	3	2	4–7
Romania	5	0	2	3	4–10
Sweden	5	0	0	5	2–16
Andorra	4	3	0	1	11–4
Turkey	4	1	1	2	7–8
Scotland	4	1	1	2	2–5
Montenegro	4	0	2	2	1–4
Italy	4	0	2	2	5–9
Russia	4	0	2	2	4–8
Czech Republic	4	0	0	4	3–11
Spain	4	0	0	4	1–10
Austria	4	0	0	4	0–12
Kazakhstan	3	2	1	0	10–2
Malta	3	2	1	0	4–1
Uzbekistan	3	2	1	0	5–3
Hungary	3	1	2	0	7–4
Iran	3	1	2	0	4–3
Georgia	3	1	1	1	4–3
Macedonia	3	1	1	1	2–4
Slovakia	3	1	0	2	2–7
Germany	3	0	1	2	2–8
Switzerland	3	0	0	3	0–4
Northern Ireland	3	0	0	3	1–6
San Marino	2	2	0	0	7–0
Azerbaijan	2	1	1	0	3–2
Cyprus	2	1	0	1	3–2
Canada	2	1	0	1	2–1
United Arab Emirates	2	1	0	1	3–3
Greece	2	1	0	1	1–1
Libya	2	0	2	0	2–2
Denmark	2	0	1	1	0–1
Croatia	2	0	0	2	1–4
Bosnia and Herzegovina	2	0	0	2	0–3
England	2	0	0	2	1–6
Tajikistan	1	1	0	0	6–1
Liechtenstein	1	1	0	0	5–1
Oman	1	1	0	0	4–0
Kyrgyzstan	1	1	0	0	3–1
Iceland	1	1	0	0	2–0
Mexico	1	1	0	0	3–2
Republic of Ireland	1	1	0	0	2–1
South Korea	1	1	0	0	1–0
Japan	1	1	0	0	1–0
New Zealand	1	1	0	0	1–0
Honduras	1	0	1	0	2–2
Peru	1	0	1	0	1–1
Ecuador	1	0	1	0	1–1
Saudi Arabia	1	0	1	0	1–1
Argentina	1	0	1	0	0–0
Gabon	1	0	1	0	0–0
Jordan	1	0	0	1	0–1
Egypt	1	0	0	1	0–2
Tunisia	1	0	0	1	0–3
Total:	239	73	61	105	274–332

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.

As of 26 February 2020

Alyaksandr Kulchy is the most capped player in the history of Belarus

Maksim Romaschenko is the top scorer in the history of Belarus with 20 goals

As of 26 February 2020

Manager	Career	Games Managed	Wins	Draws	Loses	Goals
Mikhail Vergeyenko	1992–1994, 1997–1999	24	2	6	16	22–40
Sergei Borovsky	1994–1996, 1999–2000	26	4	9	13	21–43
Eduard Malofeyev	2000–2003	22	10	5	7	31–31
Valery Streltsov (caretaker)	2002	1	0	0	1	0–3
Anatoly Baidachny	2003–2005	22	10	4	8	34–29
Yuri Puntus	2006–2007	14	3	4	7	19–26
Bernd Stange	2007–2011	49	17	14	18	65–54
Georgi Kondratiev	2011–2014	28	9	8	11	37–35
Andrei Zygmantovich (caretaker)	2014	2	1	0	1	3–5
Alyaksandr Khatskevich	2014–2016	18	6	6	6	14–19
Igor Kriushenko	2017–2019	25	8	4	13	23–37
Mikhail Markhel	2019–	8	3	1	4	5–10
Total:	1992–Present	239	73	61	105	274–332

• Belarus national under-23 football team
• Belarus national under-21 football team
• Belarus national under-19 football team
• Belarus national under-17 football team

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Belarus national football team.

• Belarus Federation of Football (in Belarusian) (in Russian) (in English)
• Belarus at FIFA
• Belarus at UEFA
• Football.by (in Russian)
• Fan Site of the Belarus National Team (in Belarusian)