9 January 2020

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From January 19th to January 25th the 16th International youth tournament among national under 17 teams will be held in Minsk, with the support of the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus and the Minsk City Executive Committee.

The traditional winter competitions will be held in the capital's football covered hall. This time, in addition to the hosts, teams from Belgium, Georgia, Israel, Iceland, Finland, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will take part in the tournament. Four participating teams, including Belarus, Belgium, Israel and Finland, made it to the elite round of the UEFA U-17 European Championship in the 2019/2020 season.

We remind you that from 2014 to 2019, twelve teams took part in the tournament. It was then that Development  Bank of the Republic of Belarus, for the first time, acted as a general partner, which gave the competition a new name.

The «Development Cup» is a serious international experience for any young player. Tournaments of this kind give young football players the opportunity to develop experience and improve their skills. Moreover, the future leaders of prominent national teams often make themselves known here. So, for example, in Minsk, the defender of «Azzurra Squadra» David Santon, now playing in «Roma», and his compatriot Mattia Destro from «Bologna» showed themselves brightly. Here the player of the Moscow CSKA Georgy Shchennikov has nicely established himself. Ukrainians Viktor Tsygankov from Dynamo Kyiv and Ivan Ordets from Dynamo Moskva defend the colors of the Ukrainian national team. Well, and, of course, the Belarusians... In different years, Stanislav Dragun, Yegor Filipenko, Denis Polyakov, Sergey Politevich, Pavel Savitsky, Vitali Lisakovich and Ivan Bakhar flashed at the tournament. Today, these footballers defend the colors of the national team of the Republic of Belarus.

In the 2020 Development Cup, Belarus will be represented by the national team of Belarus, composed of players born not earlier than in 2003. In Autumn, Andrei Skorobogatko’s players qualified for the elite round of the UEFA European Youth Championship 2019/2020 season and in the spring they will play for two berths in the final with opponents from Turkey, Ukraine and Greece. Now, at the home tournament, they will certainly make every effort to please their fans. By the way, for a rather long history of the Development Cup, the youth team of Belarus won three times in 2006, 2007 and 2019, and also four times lost in the final matches in 2005, 2008, 2014 and 2016.

At the moment, the Russian team, which won the trophy five times (2008, 2010, 2014, 2015, 2017) has the most victories, four times the championship was claimed by Ukraine (2009, 2012, 2016 and 2018), the Belarusian team became the first three times ( 2006, 2007, 2019), Belgium took the trophy twice - (2011, 2013), and in 2005 there were no equals to the team of Serbia and Montenegro.

The official opening ceremony will take place on January 19th at 17:20, and already at 18:00 the Belarus-Uzbekistan game will kick-off. Tournament tables, the schedule of matches, the results and details of the competition can be found at any time on our official website abff.by

The tournament system has undergone slight changes. This time, eight teams will be divided into two groups of four. According to the results of the group round, the first places of the quartets will compete for the trophy, the second places will fight for bronze, while the teams located in third and fourth places will also play among themselves for the final 5th and 7th positions.