On May 22, Minsk / Igor Khadasevich - BELTA /. Young trainees of the football club "Vitebsk" won the qualifying competitions of the Danone Nations Cup in their region and became finalists of the Belarusian stage of this tournament, reports BELTA correspondent. In the decisive match in Vitebsk, the home team proved stronger than the boys from Miory, winning with a score of 4:1. In the match for 3rd place, the footballers of Vitebsk's "Dvina" beat the Orsha team – 2:1. Prior to this, the Brest Centre of Olympic Reserve footballers, Grodno's "Neman" and "Gomel" advanced to the final round of the Belarusian stage. Another 3 participants of the final stage will be known this week: qualifying matches will be held in Mogilev on May 23, a finalist will be determined by young footballers from the Minsk region on May 26, and on May 27, the last spot in the final will be contested by Minsk teams. The final round of the Belarusian qualification will take place on June 1 at the Minsk stadium of the "Olympic" sports and recreation complex. This year, children's football teams from our country are competing for the second time for the only spot in the world final, which will be held in Poland. A year ago, trainees of the Minsk club "Zvezda" reached the decisive stage, which took place at the legendary Madrid stadium "Santiago Bernabeu", taking 19th place in the world final among representatives of 40 countries. This time, 56 children's teams are taking part in the qualifying tournaments, with about 800 footballers aged 10-12 years old taking to the football fields. The Danone Nations Cup was established in 2000 and is being held for the 13th time. Over the years, about 20 million young footballers from all over the world have participated in the competitions. Traditionally, a Goodwill Ambassador for the tournament is chosen in each country. Last year in Belarus, it was the then head coach of the national team, German specialist Bernd Stange, and now it is the forward of the eight-time champions and the national team of Belarus, Vitaly Rodionov. In other countries, ambassadors of the tournament in different years included Zinedine Zidane (France), Deco (Portugal), Andres Iniesta (Spain) and other world football stars. -0-

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