page_title: Soviet Union national football team
section_title: Beskov recovers the team
hierarchical_section_title: Soviet Union national football team / History / Beskov recovers the team
caption_attribution_description: English: Oleg Kuznetzov (stood), Nico Claesen and goalkeeper Rinat Dasayev, during the Belgium v USSR match at the WC.
context_page_description: The Soviet Union national football team was the national football team of the Soviet Union.
  After the breakup of the Union the team was transformed into the CIS national football team. FIFA considers the CIS national football team as the Soviet successor team allocating its former records to them; nevertheless, a large percentage of the team's former players came from outside the Russian SFSR, mainly from the Ukrainian SSR, and following the breakup of the Soviet Union, some such as Andrei Kanchelskis from the former Ukrainian SSR, continued to play in the new Russia national football team.
  The Soviet Union failed to qualify for the World Cup only twice, in 1974 and 1978, and attended seven finals tournaments in total. Their best finish was fourth in 1966, when they lost to West Germany in the semifinals, 2–1. The Soviet Union qualified for five European Championships, winning the inaugural competition in 1960 when they beat Yugoslavia in the final, 2–1. They finished second three times, and fourth once, when, having drawn with Italy in the semi-final, they were sent to the third place playoff match by the loss of a coin toss.
context_section_description: The 1982 World Cup was the Soviet Union's first major tournament appearance for a decade. The Soviet Union was in Group 6 with Brazil, Scotland and New Zealand. Goals by Socrates and Eder marked the defeat of the Soviet side against Brazil in the first group match (even though it was a very hard match for the Brazilians), and they were eventually eliminated in the second round by finishing the group in second place, when they defeated Belgium only 1–0 and drew against Poland with an 0–0 result. In 1984, the Soviets again failed to qualify for the European Championships, but succeeded in qualifying for the 1986 World Cup. Soviet Union were in Group C with Hungary, France and Canada. The Soviets used Irapuato, Guanajuato as their training ground in the World Cup.
caption: Soviet Union v Belgium at the 1986 World Cup
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "28", "Image YResolution": "28", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:01 22:17:38", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8577", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "387", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "382"}