Football in Luxembourg > History
editThe oldest football club in Luxembourg is Fola Esch, founded as the "Football and Lawntennis Club" on 9 December 1906 by English language teacher Jean Roeder[1]. Being the oldest club in the country, they are also part of the Club of Pioneers, a group set up by Sheffield FC to join together the oldest clubs in each country.
It wasn't until 1908 that enough clubs had been created to form the Luxembourg Football Federation (FLF)[2]. The following year, in 1909, the FLF organised the first National Division league, which would be won by Racing Club Luxembourg[3]. Racing were also the first team to win the inaugural Luxembourg Cup 12 years later[4]. The women's league started in the 1971–73 season and was won by the Atert Bissen women's team[5]. A women's cup competition started in 2001–02, where the Progrès Niederkorn women's team won the trophy[6].
Luxembourg, as a nation, was affiliated with FIFA in 1910, and then with UEFA in 1954. The first match of the national team was a 1–4 defeat at home to France on 29 October 1910[7]. It was only in 2006 that the national women's team played their first game, a 0–4 defeat to Slovakia at home in the 2009 UEFA Euro Qualifying stage[8]. The country hosted their first, and so far only, national tournament in 2006 when they hosted the Euro Under-17 Euro tournament[9], where they failed to progress beyond the group stage. Until 2017, Luxembourg were consistently ranked outside the top 100 teams by FIFA[10], but after some good results, namely in the UEFA Nations League, they are now ranked 84th.
The national stadium, Stade Josy Barthel, was inaugurated in 1931 and has hosted the majority of the nation team's home matches. In addition to national games, the stadium has also been used to host various European Competition games, especially in the latter stages of qualification and the Europa League Group Stage games of F91 Dudelange, were the stadium of teams did not meet UEFA criteria. In 2017, construction of a new national stadium was started in Kockelsheier, set to be opened in 2019 [11].
Since the turn of the century, the domestic league has been dominated by F91 Dudelange, having won 14 league titles as well as 7 Luxembourg Cup titles. This is still some way behind the most successful team in the country, Jeunesse Esch, with 28 league titles, however Dudelange was only founded as recently as 1991. They added to this success by becoming the first Luxembourgish team to qualify for the Group Stage of the Europa League in 2018–19, after dropping out of the Champions League Qualification Stage [12].
References
edit- ^ "CS Fola Esch - Historique" [CS Fola Esch - History] (in French). CS Fola Esch. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Luxembourg - Association Information". FIFA. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ Schöggl, Hans. "Luxembourg 1909/10". RSSSF. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ Stokkermans, Karel. "Luxembourg - List of Cup Finals". RSSSF. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ Garin, Erik. "Luxembourg - List of Women Champions". RSSSF. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ Schöggl, Hans. "Luxembourg - List of Women Cup Winners". RSSSF. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Live Scores - Luxembourg - Matches". FIFA.com. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
- ^ "Live Scores - Luxembourg - Women's - Matches". FIFA.com. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
- ^ "Under-17 - Russian determination wins out". UEFA.com. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
- ^ "The FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking". FIFA. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
- ^ "Nouveau stade" [New Stadium] (in French). FLF. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
- ^ Colin, Jean-François. "Revue de presse: entre extase et incrédulité" [Press review: between ecstasy and disbelief] (in French). Wort.lu. Retrieved 26 November 2018.