Belarus football and mini-football teams on the verge of great discoveries

Tonight, the Belarusian football team will take the first step towards its dream and the long-term aspirations of fans. Our team has never won a group tournament in Division C of the Nations League, and now confidently claims to be promoted in the class. The first opponent on the way up is San Marino, but everyone understands (and the position of the teams in the group confirms this) that the main match will be held on Sunday in Budapest with the Albanians.

Predictions for the finish of the tournament abound. The head coach of the national team, however, is in no hurry to jump over the steps. Bearing in mind the extremely difficult nature of the confrontation with the San Marinas in the first round, when the Belarusians even won 4-0, but were able to tip the scales to their side only in the second half and only with the huge help of goalkeeper Pavel Pavlyuchenko and a huge share of luck, Viktor Gancharenko does not cease to remind the wards that the same Albanians won against our current opponent, only having implemented a penalty at the very end of the match: “San Marina are very aggressive, according to one scheme.” They are actively defending and trying to attack in some way. It will depend on how we hold the ball, how we attack, how our attacks end. As for good prospects, we don’t look far. It is important to play against San Marino. Under no circumstances should we think about what perspective we are facing. Our goal is to give everything on Thursday and then move on.

Over the month that passed after the closing of the previous “window of national teams”, the Belarusian team lost injured Vitaly Lisakovich, but found reinforcement in the form of Vladislav Morozov called from Denmark, Dynamo from Minsk Karen Vardanyan and Dynamo from Makhachkala Kirill Zinovich. At the same time, not only the playing form or damage is forced to operate on the coaching staff when choosing a lineup for the game. It is already known that due to two warnings, Artem Shumansky and German Barkovsky will miss today's match, but surely adds headaches to the mentors and the fact that eight players of the national team - Kirill Pechenin, Ivan Tikhomirov, Vladislav Kalinin, Roman Begunov, Anton Lukashov, Zakhar Volkov, Valery Bocherov and Artem Kontseva - are on the verge of disqualification for the game with Albania. And how in battle (and the other definition of what will happen at the Olympic stadium in Serravalla is difficult to find) to separate the desire to win from the desire not to fall into the trap?

Here it is extremely important that each member of the national team – on and off the field – worked for the overall result. Not for myself, not for a future contract, but for the team. He played and acted approximately like the national team of Belarus in mini-football, which just confidently beat not only modest Albanians in this sport (8: 2), but also a very authoritative in the hall, which took fourth place at the 2021 World Cup, which has a whole colony of naturalized Brazilians, the national team of Kazakhstan - 5: 1.

- Of course, the score for us is definitely unexpected, — said after the victory in Slovakia, the head coach of the Belarusian national team Alexander Chernik. - Yes, we set up and prepared the guys for the game with such content. Our tactical designs worked. We successfully caught the opponent on counterattacks and scored good goals. But the numbers on the scoreboard exceeded all expectations. To the last seconds the score is 5:0... All the guys showed their best, great dedication. Once again I want to highlight the goalkeeper Alexei Lukshu. Such a wall, even a rock! He gave us confidence. It is very pleasant that not only experienced leaders Vlad Selyuk, Alexei Pinchuk, Sergey Krykun scored, but also less sophisticated Vitaly Shadurko and Sergey Sinitsky. So it's a total success. The team reached it through a lot of work, plowing.

Having won with the score 5:1, the Belarusian mini-football team took revenge from the Kazakhstan team for the defeat in Astana - 4:5. Our futsalists have already become the main contenders for victory in the group, and therefore for reaching the decisive stage of qualification of the World Cup - 2028. Now it's the players' turn. Recall that the winner of group C1 will receive a direct ticket to League B, and the teams that took second place in groups of League C will play play play-offs with the fourth teams of League B. However, it is important to take the first place also because during the Euro-2028 qualifying draw scheduled for December 6, the winners of the C League groups will definitely be in the third basket, and accordingly, can get a more “light” draw. Taking into account the recent recognition of the head of the ABFF Evgeny Buloychik (“The League of Nations for the main team of the country is a preliminary, if you can call it that, tournament”. The main thing is the qualification of the European Championship), the strategy of the national team in the remaining matches, in general, is clear. But I just want to win. Win twice, so that once you set yourself the maximum task, you can look forward confidently and not look back.

gord@sb.by