The Belarusian national football team made many people believe in their abilities. Now we have to win against the Finns

Love can help, too

Tuesday may clear up all the questions in the Nations League Group C1 standings, but we hope that the situation of the teams will only get confused. The national team of Belarus on Saturday not only won the first victory in two years in an official match, but also made many believe in their capabilities. Now we have to win against the Finns..

With the ball Kirill Pechenin. So, in the third round of the League of Nations, the Belarusians defeated the weakest team in the world according to the FIFA rating - the team of San Marino. The Finns won her away - 7: 0, the Albanians - 3: 0, and the Belarusians - 4: 0. Let’s not forget that the first half ended with a zero draw.

The score was opened in the first minute of the second half by Artem Kontseva, after which the national team spent several such inexpressive minutes that in post-match comments, the football players and the head coach were forced to repeatedly thank goalkeeper Pavel Pavlyuchenko, who brought the teammates to their senses with several truly outstanding saves. Then the goal-beautiful scored Artem Shumansky. The third ball on the account of Max Ebong, and the main thing here is not even the capture of the goal, but the third successive transfer from Kirill Pechenin in one match - the defender of the Samara "Wings of the Soviets" became the first footballer in the history of the main team of this country, who managed an assistant hat-trick in an official match. The point in the game was set by the same End, thanks to which the midfielder “ML Vitebsk” was included in the team of the third round of the entire League of Nations.

After the match with Albania Artem Kontseva was forced to leave the location of the national team for family reasons. And before the game with San Marino came back and eventually scored two goals. From the point of view of the chairman, I am glad that there was a rare case when the team and the coaching staff spend such a long period of time together. There is a good mood in the team, said after the game in Budapest (in this tournament the home matches of the Belarusian national team are hosted by the Hungarian capital), ABFF Chairman Evgeny Bulojchik. It was a very difficult game against San Marino. Not only Belarus, but also many countries from the post-Soviet space have a hard time playing with rivals below the class. We have not won official matches for two years: the last Victoria was in September 2024 over Luxembourg. It’s nice to see the guys take San Marino seriously. Tough first half. If we had scored in the first 10 or 15 minutes, it would have been a completely different game. But this is football, anyone can succeed. For us, it was not so much about showing the content of the game (I know we can play well!), but about the results. Finland defeated Albania - 2: 1, in the standings increased density. This victory will give us confidence: we saw that we can score. And we can play with any opponent. With the national team of Finland, our guys have already played, and it was just last Tuesday. That meeting took place at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki and ended in a draw - 0: 0. The Finns looked better in the first half, the Belarusians in the second. Our team even scored twice, but the VAR system canceled the goal twice. What happens today?

In the preview of the upcoming matches of the fourth round of the Nations League, the official UEFA website separately singled out the players of the Finnish national team Leo Valta and Yoel Pohyanpalo, who have scored seven goals for two to date: Finland, the leader in Group C1, scored nine goals, four of which are on the account of Leo Valta, and three – Yoel Pohyanpalo. In the fourth round, Belarus will be tasked with deterring these two attacking players.” The 23-year-old Valta, by the way, shares first place in the Nations League bomber race with Harry Kane and Lamin Yamal with four goals. Pohyanpalo scored three times, but the 32-year-old forward played all his goals against San Marino. And we have clean strikers have not scored anything yet. “Only God knows why this happens,” says Trofim Melnichenko. - It seems that the preparation is at the level, and everything is fine with the mentality. I am currently working with a psychologist in Portugal because I am experiencing these moments. But tomorrow is a new day and in the match against the Finns I will do everything to help the team.

TABLET

League of Nations. Group C1

Belarus – San Marino – 4:0 (Kontsevoi, 46, 88, Shumansky, 65, Ebong, 68), Finland – Albania – 2:1 (Valta, 27, 71; Manai, 4).

gord@sb.by

Photo courtesy of the ABFF press office