The National A-team is preparing for the match vs Estonia

Belarus national A-team is set for the fifth match of the European Qualifiers for the UEFA European Championship 2020.

The pre-match press-conference of the «white wings» was held at «А. Le Coq Arena» Mikhail Markhel answered the media's questions in the company of Maksim Skavysh. Later on the players and coaching staff proceeded to the pre-match training session which included a standard set of excercises in the course of the preparation for the match. 

As communicated earlier 23 football players arrived in Tallinn incuding 8 potential debutants of Belarusa national football team. 

The upcoming match will be the seventh in the head-to head history of Belarus and Estonia national teams.  The teams met for the first time during the qualification to the FIFA World Cup 1998, which Belarus team played with head coach Sergei Borovski. At that time between the Summer and Autumn of 1996 the opponents exchanged with minimum victories on home soil. The teams hav not met in official fixtures since then whereas in the friendly games it is the Baltics side that has the upper hand. Estonia achieved victories in friendly's of 2000 and 2006 winning 2:0 and 2:1 against teams led by Sergei Borovski and Yuri Puntus correspondingly. Nevertheless the most recent encounter was won by the «white wings». In the summer of 2013 Belarus national team with Georgi Kondratiev in charge won 2:0 in Tallinn. It is worth mentioning that from the football players called-up for the current fixtures two were on the matchsheet then. Aleksandr Gutor registered a clean sheet and Maksim Skavysh made an assist.  

The UEFA draw led to a couple of meetings of our countries on club level. In the UEFA Europa League second qualifying round of the 2010/2011 season «Dinamo-Minsk» didnt leave any chances for в «Kalev» from Sillamäe having won both games 5:1 and 5:0. 

In the last but one UEFA Cup winners cup of the 1997/1998 season «Belshina» Bobruisk knocked out «Sadam» from Tallinn at the begining of the qualification. The away game ended with a 1:1 draw6 while a 4:1 victory was registered in Belarus. 

Tomorrow Staislav Dragun can register his 60-th cap for the national team. Ivan Maevski and Sergei Politevich can play in the «white wings» squad for a 30th time. Maksim Plotnikov, Zakhar Volkov, Kirill Pechenin, Nikolai Zolotov, Yevgeni Yablonski, Max Ebong and Ivan Bakhar can all make their debut for Belarus national A-team.  

The upcoming match Estonia - Belarus will be held tomorrow at «A. Le Coq Arena» stadium and will start at 19.00 Belarusian time. The game will be broadcast live on «Belarus 5» TV channel.