Luxembourg national football team

Luxembourg

Nickname(s)	De Roude Léiw (The Red Lions)
Association	Luxembourg Football Federation (Fédération Luxembourgeoise de Football)
Confederation	UEFA (Europe)
Head coach	Luc Holtz
Captain	Jeff Strasser
Most caps	Jeff Strasser (90)
Top scorer	Léon Mart (16)
Home stadium	Stade Josy Barthel
FIFA code	LUX
FIFA ranking	127
Highest FIFA ranking	93 (April 1996)
Lowest FIFA ranking	195 (August 2006)
Elo ranking	184
Home colours Away colours
First international
Luxembourg 1 - 4 France (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; October 29, 1911)
Biggest win
Luxembourg 6 - 0 Afghanistan (London, United Kingdom; July 26, 1948)
Biggest defeat
Luxembourg 0 - 9 England (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg; October 19, 1960) England 9 - 0 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. The team play most of their home matches at the Stade Josy Barthel, in Luxembourg City.

History

Luxembourg national football team 1920 year

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 1963, Luxembourg narrowly failed to qualify for the 1964 European Football Championship semi-finals. Having defeated the Netherlands 1–1 and 2–1 in the First round, 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 UEFA 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 2010 - Did not qualify

European Championship record

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

Managers

• Ernst Melchior (1969-1972)
• Louis Pilot (1978–1984)
• Paul Philipp (1985–2001)
• Allan Simonsen (2001–2004)
• Guy Hellers (2004–2010)
• Luc Holtz (2010–)

Players

The most capped Luxembourg player until November 2008 was 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.^[1] Jeff Strasser took over his record, as of April 2010 he has made 96 appearances in full internationals.^[2]

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.^[3]

In 2004, a UEFA commissioned award named Louis Pilot as Luxembourg's greatest player of the past 50 years.^[4]

Current squad

This is the squad called up for the match against Latvia on 28 March 2009 and 1 April 2009.

0#0 Pos. Player Date of Birth (Age) Caps Goals Club GK Jonathan Joubert September 12, 1979 (1979-09-12) (age 31) 26 0 F91 Dudelange GK Marc Oberweis November 6, 1982 (1982-11-06) (age 28) 5 0 Grevenmacher GK Lex Menster October 13, 1991 (1991-10-13) (age 19) 0 0 72 Erpeldange DF Massimo Martino September 18, 1990 (1990-09-18) (age 20) 2 0 Wuppertaler SV DF Jacques Plein February 17, 1987 (1987-02-17) (age 23) 0 0 Etzella Ettelbruck MF René Peters June 15, 1981 (1981-06-15) (age 29) 66 4 Jeunesse Esch MF Eric Hoffmann June 21, 1984 (1984-06-21) (age 26) 57 0 Etzella Ettelbruck MF Fons Leweck December 16, 1981 (1981-12-16) (age 29) 50 4 Etzella Ettelbruck MF Mario Mutsch September 3, 1984 (1984-09-03) (age 26) 33 1 FC Metz MF Gilles Bettmer March 31, 1989 (1989-03-31) (age 21) 23 0 Freiburg II MF Claudio Lombardelli October 4, 1987 (1987-10-04) (age 23) 20 0 Jeunesse Esch MF Ben Payal September 8, 1988 (1988-09-08) (age 22) 21 0 F91 Dudelange MF Lars Christian Krogh Gerson February 5, 1990 (1990-02-05) (age 21) 5 0 Kongsvinger MF Gérard Geisbusch May 4, 1988 (1988-05-04) (age 22) 2 0 Fola Esch MF Mathias Jänisch August 27, 1990 (1990-08-27) (age 20) 0 0 Grevenmacher FW Stephano Bensi August 11, 1988 (1988-08-11) (age 22) 2 0 K.M.S.K. Deinze

Recent call-ups

0#0 Pos. Player Date of Birth (Age) Caps Goals Club DF Guy Blaise December 12, 1980 (1980-12-12) (age 30) 0 0 Virton DF Jérôme Bigard February 16, 1985 (1985-02-16) (age 25) 8 0 F91 Dudelange DF Kim Kintziger February 4, 1987 (1987-02-04) (age 24) 26 0 Differdange 03 DF Claude Reiter July 2, 1981 (1981-07-02) (age 29) 37 1 Etzella Ettelbruck DF Benoît Lang December 19, 1983 (1983-12-19) (age 27) 9 0 Fola Esch DF Dan Collette April 2, 1985 (1985-04-02) (age 25) 19 0 Jeunesse Esch MF Jonathan Proietti July 17, 1982 (1982-07-17) (age 28) 1 0 Progrès Niedercorn MF Paul Bossi July 22, 1991 (1991-07-22) (age 19) 3 0 Fola Esch FW Aurélien Joachim August 18, 1986 (1986-08-18) (age 24) 21 1 Differdange 03

References

External links

• RSSSF archive of results 1911-
• RSSSF archive of most capped players and highest goalscorers
• Luxembourg's football federation website
• Luxemb. football

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