Somewhen while I was reading the articles on Scorum, I got an idea about injustice, that is connected with the lack of posts on the Belarusian football championship topic at the platform. The Belgium football is popular on Scorum, so why not to start writing about Belarus championship. The idea came to try to cover the events taking place in the Belarusian championship, and this publication is the first post on this topic, because today the first after pause for the matches of the European cup qualification ended. And it was the 18th day of the tournament.

Before we start let me briefly describe the situation in league.. The championship involves 16 teams, each team plays with each two matches: one - at home, one – at guest field. So teams play 30 games. At the end of the season, the champion goes to the qualification of the Champions League, the teams that got second and third places - in the Europe League, where they are joined by the winner of the Cup. The two worst teams are leaving the Highest league, and in their place are the two strongest of the First league.

There are three periods In the history of independent Belarusian football:

1. Post-Soviet, or Dynamo - period (1992 - 1997). In the first years of the sovereign championship the leadership was behind the flagship of Belarusian football – Dynamo Minsk. They took first place six times in the first 7 championships.

2. Transitional (1998 - 2005). Some teams who was able to compete with Dynamo appeared in this period. However, all of them, with the exception of Barysau BATE and Saligorsk Shakhtyor, have evolved into mid-level teams over time, for example: Slavia, Gomel, Belshina, the Dnepr.

3. BATE-period (2006 - 2018) In 2006, the Barysau players won their third gold, since then they have not given the championship once, having won the championship 12 times in a row. This year, BATE is also the main contender for victory in the tournament.

In the last 6 years in the Belarusian championship, not only the champion, but also the team-prizemen remains unchanged. The second and third place is occupied by Minsk Dynamo and Saligorsk Shakhtyor, although they change their places periodically. The most real chance to interrupt the monopoly of BATE was last championship at Dynamo, when the destiny of the championship was decided in the last round, and Barysau's victory was achieved due to a goal on the 95th minute of the match, which provided the team with a draw in game with Gorodeya and equality of points with Dynamo, but additional indicators were in favor of BATE. In fact, this story is worthy of a separate publication, so let's move on to the current championship.

Today the eighteenth day of the championship - 2018 ended, which, as noted above, was the first after a pause for European Cup matches. It should be noted that the match between BATE and Dynamo (Brest) was postponed to the autumn, as both clubs last week held matches in the Euro qualification, and BATE tomorrow will play the round of the playoff qualification of the Champions League against the Dutch PSV.

As for the day itself, I will stop at the main event in order not to overload the post - one surprise happened on the tour: Minsk Dynamo, apparently, did not come to its senses after the defeat from St. Petersburg Zenit and gave way to Goroděj with the score 0-2. The rest of the matches ended predictably:

To date, the championship standings are as follows:

As you can see, Barysau BATE is ahead of the nearest pursuers by 7 points, and Vitebsk took advantage of misfiring of Minsk Dynamo in the last game and came out in second place.