BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

13/10/2008

The Stange rise of Belarussian football

by John Atkin & Michael Fiala

Bernd Stange and Belarus are sizing up EnglandBernd Stange and Belarus are sizing up England (cBongarts)Photos/WallpapersPhotos/Wallpapers >

Bernd Stange may be without his "Pele" as he prepares Belarus for a game against an England team bristling with confidence, but having guided war-torn Iraq to fourth at the 2004 Olympics the German coach knows a thing or two about overcoming the odds.

Rising tide

These are heady times for football in Belarus, a nation hardly renowned as a hotbed of talent. FC BATE Borisov are making waves in the UEFA Champions League, Belarus reached the 2009 UEFA European U21 Championship play-offs, where they hope to overturn a 1-0 deficit at home to Turkey on Tuesday, and Stange's senior side are quickly establishing themselves among Europe's middle classes. "It's no fluke," said the 60-year-old. "Belarus have improved [35 places] in the FIFA world rankings since last October, the U21 side are doing well and BATE Borisov - a team most have never heard of - qualified for the Champions League group stage, beating [PFC] Levski Sofia and [RSC] Anderlecht on the way. I don't think you can call this luck. It's the result of a lot of hard work."

"If someone like Aleksandr Hleb is injured, as he is at the moment, then the team are missing their Maradona, their Beckenbauer, their Pele, and it's even more difficult to spring a surprise"Bernd Stange

Surprise packages

That industry was apparent in Belarus's FIFA World Cup Group 6 qualifier last month in Ukraine, where they kept the hosts at bay for 93 minutes before Andriy Shevchenko's penalty decided the cruellest of defeats. Stange regrouped his charges and guided them to a 3-1 victory in Andorra four days later, but as they gear up to welcome England to Minsk the coach is under no illusions. "We are in a group with England, Croatia and Ukraine so our objective is to surprise the big teams, to put in a good performance. That's what we have been able to do so far and we will try to continue, but we lack consistency and just don't have enough good players at our disposal. If someone like Aleksandr Hleb is injured, as he is at the moment, then the team are missing their Maradona, their Beckenbauer, their Pele, and it's even more difficult to spring a surprise!"

Unusual path

Good as he is, few would liken Hleb to such footballing aristocracy but, to put it in context, behind the FC Barcelona midfielder the country's most successful player of the last three decades, four-time Belarussian Player of the Year Sergey Gotsmanov, spent a season at the peak of his career with Brighton and Hove Albion FC in England. It shows how far they have come and, perhaps, the strength of Stange's alchemy, a power first honed in the ranks at FC Carl Zeiss Jena during the 1970s. Spells with the East German national team and as far afield as Perth, Ukraine and Oman followed before October 2002 when, despite the very real threat of military conflict, Stange became coach of Iraq.

"There were no physios, no medical support, no proper football pitches, not even showers or other basic facilities, things normally taken for granted. But we were still successful"Bernd Stange

'What a sensation!'

"I learned a lot," he said of what became a two-year tenure in the Middle East. "I started with normal ambitions but the war came and it was almost impossible to coach there. Still, I saw how it is possible to create success despite the poorest of conditions - just with a football. There were no physios, no medical support, no proper football pitches, not even showers or other basic facilities, things normally taken for granted. But we were still successful. We qualified for the Olympics and came fourth - what a sensation! It's not all about the money - it's about heart, desire and motivation. It was a good experience for me."

Know-how

Experience is something Stange values above all when it come to coaching. He needs little reminding that the last two UEFA European Championships have culminated in a man of retirement age - Otto Rehhagel (65) in 2004 and Luis Aragones (69) four years later - holding the trophy. "The number of 'older' coaches at the highest level is rising," he said. "It's important to have experience as leading a team isn't something you can learn overnight. It is particularly important because nowadays you have only a little time with the players. You have a maximum of ten days, with three or four-day spells here and there, so you really need experience to be able to build a team so quickly." Stange has certainly wasted no time in making his mark since taking over as Belarus coach 14 months ago.

Bernd Stange spoke to uefa.com at the 8th UEFA Conference for European National Coaches in Vienna last month.

Source:

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/worldcup/news/kind=1/newsid=759951.html

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