CIS national football team

The Commonwealth of Independent States national football team (Russian: Сборная СНГ по футболу, Sbornaya SNG po futbolu) was a transitional national team of the Football Federation of the Soviet Union in 1992. It was accepted that the team would represent the Commonwealth of Independent States that was formed as a loose union of former union republics of the Soviet Union after the nation's dissolution.

The CIS team was created to allow the Soviet national team further participation as it had already booked a spot in Euro 1992 through the 1990–91 qualification tournament. The only way to preserve the spot for the post-Soviet team was to take part in the competition as a unified team.

As the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist on 26 December 1991, so did all its organizations including the football federation. The Association of Football Federations of CIS was formed on 11 January 1992 and was approved by FIFA two days later. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 was adopted as its anthem. Along with the Association, national federations of its members started to form and apply for international recognition.^[1]

The CIS national football team was formed based on the USSR national football team which completed its participation in the Euro 1992 in June 1992. The CIS national football team was disbanded soon thereafter, and all its results were transferred to the Russia national football team that played its first game in August 1992.

Unlike the Yugoslav national football team which was barred from competitions during that time and replaced with the team of Denmark, FIFA and UEFA chose to preserve the former Soviet Union team and admitted to their rank a transnational team^[1] for the first time in their history. UEFA was offered an additional qualifying tournament among former members of the Soviet Union,^[1] but chose not only to ignore the offer and not to impose any sanctions against the non-existent political entity discriminating in the way against other former members of the Soviet Union, but also allowed the transnational entity to the European finals over national.

The CIS national football team was coached by Anatoly Byshovets. The team failed to achieve success in the 1992 European Football Championship, finishing last in the group, but achieved two notable draws with Germany and the Netherlands, before being beaten 3–0 by Scotland in what turned out to be their last match. In addition to their three matches at Euro 1992, the team played six friendlies: two against the United States and one each against El Salvador, Israel, Spain, Denmark, and against England in Moscow, the team's only match in front of a home crowd. The CIS also played an unofficial match against Mexico, a 4–0 loss.^[2]

Following the Euros, the CIS team was dissolved. Their final record was three wins, five draws, and three defeats, including the unofficial loss to Mexico.

  Win   Draw   Loss

Source:^[3]

1. ^{^} Kazakhstan were affiliated with the AFC from 1994 until 2002, when they joined UEFA.

The following squad was brought to the 1992 UEFA European Football Championship hosted by Sweden:^[16]

Head coach: Anatoliy Byshovets

In total, the CIS squad contained seven Russians, eight Ukrainians (one born in Germany), a Georgian, a Belarusian, an Abkhazian, a Circassian, and an Ossetian. Caps included games played for the Soviet team as well as the CIS. Some players simultaneously played for other national teams such as Kakhaber Tskhadadze (Georgia) and Akhrik Tsveiba (Ukraine).

Russia qualified for the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States with the bulk of the Euro 1992 CIS squad but due to the incident with the Letter of fourteeners in November 1993, Igor Shalimov, Igor Dobrovolsky, Igor Kolyvanov, Sergei Kiriakov, Vasili Kulkov, and Andrei Kanchelskis were excluded from the national team. Oleg Salenko and Andrei Ivanov, who also signed the letter, eventually withdrew their signatures. Tsveiba and Chernyshov were later called to the Russia national football team.^[17]

Some players resumed their international careers with their respective individual nations; however, many preferred to play for Russia. Although almost one third of the team were from Ukraine, only two Ukrainian players ever played for the Ukraine national football team, while another four chose to play for the Russian national team.

• Unified Team at the Olympics, the Olympic counterpart
  • Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics
  • Unified Team at the 1992 Winter Olympics
• Unified Team at the Paralympics, the Paralympic counterpart
  • Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Paralympics
  • Unified Team at the 1992 Winter Paralympics

• USSR national football team Archived 2009-07-07 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian)