Following the Red Lions' opening defeat away to Northern Ireland in last Thursday's opening UEFA Nations League 2024/25, they had their first home match of the campaign on Sunday 8 September 2024 against Belarus at the Stade de Luxembourg.
Pleased in front of 6,820 spectators, this was the home side's opportunity to get their campaign back on track; as things turned out, it was a case of what might have been...
In three changes to the team that started on Saturday, in came Eldin Dzogovic, Mamime Chanot and Danel Sinani in place of Lars Gerson and Eric Veiga who both dropped to the bench, and Gerson Rodrigues who failed to make the matchday squad.
The referee, Lawrence Visser from Begium, got the game underway in an afternoon kick-off.
The first half was a fairly equal half, with both sides having a couple of opportunities, but neither side finding the net.
At the start of the second half, Luxembourg brought on Sebastien Thill and Michael Pinto for Mathias Olesen and Laurent Jans respectively; with 25 minutes to play, Enes Mahmutovic came on for Florian Bohnert as Luxembourg searched for an all-important goal.
As it was, Valeri Gromyko scored the only goal of the game in the 76th minute, for the visitors.
Luxembourg threw on Timothe Rupil for Eldin Dzogovic with seven minutes of normal time remaining, but to no avail.
Luxembourg had 57% of the possession on the night, and franctionally more attacks than Belarus did (45 to 42), but they could not make such superiority count where it mattered most, on the scoreboard.
Meanwhile, in group C3's other game on Sunday, Bulgaria defeated Northern Ireland 1-0 at home in Sofia.
With Belarus and Bulgaria both on 4 points, Luxembourg remain rooted to the bottom of the table, without a point and without a goal in their opening two games. Their next match is on Saturday 12 October 2024 away to Bulgaria.
Luxembourg: Anthony Moris (GK), Eldin Dzogovic, Mamime Chanot, Dirk Carlson, Laurent Jans (c), Florian Bohnert, Christopher Martins, Leandro Barreiro, Mathias Olesen, Enes Mahmutovic, Danel Sinani
