Belarus off to promising start

Belarus made a positive start to their bid to reach a second straight UEFA European Under-21 Championship with victory in their opening 2011 qualifier.

Filipenko winner
Having failed to progress from the group stage in Sweden in June, their second final tournament appearance, Belarus are aiming to make it to Denmark in two years' time and 4,150 fans in Molodechno saw the home side make a promising start. Vladimir Yurchenko's early goal was cancelled out by Daniel Beichler but Yegor Filipenko ensured maximum Group 10 points for Yury Kurnenin's team on the hour.

Familiar faces
Austria began brightly but six minutes in Yurchenko, one of four survivors from the finals squad in June along with Artyom Gomelko, Oleg Veretilo and Mikhail Sivakov, intercepted a Georg Margreitter pass, went past three defenders and beat goalkeeper Wolfgang Schober. Stanislav Dragun came close to adding a second but on the half-hour Austria were level, Beichler turning in a cross from Julian Baumgartlinger.

Austria denied
The visitors began the second half the stronger with Atdhe Nuhiu hitting the post and Haris Bukva shooting wide. Belarus made the most of that let-off as they began to up the pace and substitute Dmitri Rekish forced a save from Schober. A couple of minutes later Rekish found Filipenko and the defender finished neatly under the crossbar. Austria's campaign continues at home to Scotland on 5 September; four days later Belarus visit Azerbaijan.