The USSR women's national football team represented the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in international women's football. The team was controlled by the

Football Federation of the Soviet Union The Football Federation of the USSR (russian: Федерация футбола СССР) was a governing body of football in the Soviet Union and since 1972 the main governing body of football in the country. The Federation was created late i ...

. It was founded in 1990, so it was a short-lived national team due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union the following year. Oleg Lapshin served as the team's coach during its 20 months of existence.

Background

Following a letter published in 1972 in the magazine journal Zdorovye complaining about a women's football tournament being held in Dnipropetrovsk, Nina Graevskaya, head of the USSR Federation of Sports Medicine, replied that holding such competitions was inexpedient, arguing that playing football posed a danger to the female body because of the size of its heart, bones and pelvis and its spine and joint's degree of mobility. One month later the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sport issued a ban on women's football, along with women's boxing and wrestling.

History

The Soviet team played its first match on 26 March 1990 against

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. A. Bezmenova, Tatyana Verezubova and Irina Gnutova made it a 4–1 win. Two weeks later they played their first match on Soviet soil, a 0–0 draw against

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

Sevastopol Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...

. The Soviet women's national team didn't take part in the

1991 UEFA Women's Championship qualification The qualification for the UEFA Women's Euro 1991 was held between September 9, 1989 & December 12, 1990. Quarter finals winners qualified for the final tournament. The tournament also served as qualifiers for the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup, w ...

, instead playing friendly matches. The USSR was accepted for the

1993 UEFA Women's Championship The 1993 UEFA Women's Championship, also referred to as Women's Euro 1993 was a football tournament that happened between 1991 and 1993 (with the qualifying round). The final games was held in Italy. The UEFA Women's Championship is a regular tour ...

, which would have marked its first appearance in an official women's football tournament. The Soviet national team played its only official game on 6 October 1991, a 2–1 win over

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. They'd play their final match just 1 month before their next qualification game, ending their short existence with a balance of 9 wins, 9 draws and 21 losses. The second qualification game was played in May 1992 after the break-up of the USSR Football Federation, with the debuting Russia women's national team representing the new

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References

{{National sports teams of the Soviet Union 1990 establishments in the Soviet Union 1991 disestablishments in the Soviet Union Former national association football teams in Europe

women A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

Women's football in Russia European women's national association football teams