Luxembourg national football team

Infobox National football team
Name = Luxembourg
Badge = Luxembourg_FA.gif
FIFA Trigramme = LUX
Nickname = D'Roud Léiwen ("The Red Lions")
Association = Luxembourg Football Federation
"(Fédération Luxembourgeoise
de Football)"
Confederation = UEFA (Europe)
Coach = flagicon|Luxembourg Guy Hellers (2004-)
Captain = Jeff Strasser
Most caps = Carlo Weis (87)
Top scorer = Léon Mart (16)
Home Stadium = Stade Josy Barthel
FIFA Rank = 123
FIFA max = 93
FIFA max date = April 1996
FIFA min = 195
FIFA min date = August 2006
Elo Rank = 184
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First game = Flagicon|Luxembourg Luxembourg 1 - 4 France Flagicon|France (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; October 29, 1911)
Largest win = Flagicon|Luxembourg Luxembourg 6 - 0 Afghanistan Flagicon|Afghanistan|1931 (London, United Kingdom; July 26, 1948)
Largest loss = Flagicon|Luxembourg Luxembourg 0 - 9 England Flagicon|England (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; October 19, 1960)
Flagicon|England England 9 - 0 Luxembourg Flagicon|Luxembourg (London, England; December 15, 1982)

The Luxembourg national football team is the national football team of Luxembourg, and is controlled by the Luxembourg Football Federation. It plays most of its home matches at the Stade Josy Barthel, in Luxembourg City.

Luxembourg has historically been one of the weakest members of UEFA. However recent games have shown a steady improvement and younger players give grounds for hope for the future of Luxembourg's football. In 1964 Luxembourg narrowly failed to qualify for the 1964 European Football Championship Semi-Finals. Having defeated the Netherlands 1-1 and 2-1 in the Round of 16, they drew with Denmark 3-3 and 2-2 in the quarter finals, before losing 1-0 in the replay.

More recently, they had minor successes in the qualifying campaign for the 1996 European Football Championship as they managed three 1-0 victories, beating Malta twice and upset eventual runners-up Czech Republic at home. However, from 1995 until 2007, Luxembourg failed to win a game, falling down the FIFA World Rankings to a low of 195th in the process. The team scored its first victory in almost twelve years in February 2007, beating Gambia 2-1 in a friendly match. In October of the same year Luxembourg recorded its first competitive win in 12 years, beating Belarus 1-0 in a EURO 2008 qualifying game, following it up on 10 September 2008 with a win away to Switzerland, their first World Cup Qualifying win since 1972.

World Cup record

*1930 - "Did not enter"
*1934 to 2006 - "Did not qualify"

European Championship record

*1960 - "Did not enter"
*1964 - "Did not qualify (Quarter Final, Final Qualifying Round)"
*1968 - 2008 - "Did not qualify"

Head coaches

* Louis Pilot (1978 – 1984)
* Paul Philipp (1985 – 2001)
* Allan Simonsen (2001 – 2004)
* Guy Hellers (2004 – "present day")

Players

The most capped Luxembourg player is Carlo Weis, who made 87 appearances between 1978 and 1998. Two of these appearances were made against "B" teams of other nations, however, the Fédération Luxembourgeoise de Football regards both of these matches as official internationals. [cite web | title=Carlo Weis - International Appearances | url= http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/weis-intl.html | publisher=RSSSF | accessdate=2008-05-24] Jeff Strasser is second, as of March 2008 he has made 83 appearances in full internationals. [cite web | title=Appearances for Luxembourg National Team | url= http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/lux-recintlp.html | publisher=RSSSF | accessdate=2008-05-24]

Luxembourg's all-time leading goalscorer is Léon Mart, who scored 16 goals between 1933 and 1945, though most of his goals were scored against international "B" teams. [cite web | title=Léon Mart - Goals in International Matches | url= http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/mart-intlg.html | publisher=RSSSF | accessdate=2008-05-24]

In 2004, a UEFA commissioned award named Louis Pilot as Luxembourg's greatest player of the past 50 years. [cite web | title=Golden Players take centre stage | url= http://www.uefa.com/uefa/news/Kind=256/newsId=130150.html | publisher=UEFA | accessdate=2008-05-24]

Current squad

The following players were called for the friendly match against Wales on March 26 2008.

Recent Call Ups

The following players have also been called up to the Luxembourg squad in 2008.

References

External links

* [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesl/lux-intres.html RSSSF archive of results 1911-]
* [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/lux-recintlp.html RSSSF archive of most capped players and highest goalscorers]
* [http://www.flf.lu/ Luxembourg's football federation website]
* [http://webplaza.pt.lu/~funar58/a.html Luxemb. football]