Football in Belize

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The football in Belize developed in spite of the British influence (the country was a British colony from 1862 to 1973 and carried the name British Honduras) relatively late and so far with little success. The country has only been represented by its own national team since 1995.

Local football championships

At first, football was only played in the port city of Belize City , where a regional football championship has been held annually since 1919/20, which was dominated by a team called Preston in the first decade . Occasionally teams from other parts of the country also competed in this league. It was not until the 1970s that a nationwide first division called the Interdistrict Championship was established . This culminated in the Belize Premier Football League , which existed until the 2011 season , which in turn was replaced in 2012 by the Premier League of Belize , which still exists today .

International soccer tournaments

Both the club teams and the national team have so far only played a subordinate role at international level and have hardly left any traces in international football. The greatest success of the national team was a fourth place at the Copa Centroamericana of 2013 , when Belize prevailed in the preliminary group against Guatemala (0-0) and Nicaragua (2-1) and advanced to the semi-finals. There the team lost 1-0 to Honduras and then in the game for third place with the same result against El Salvador. This was the only time she took part in the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup , where she lost all games (1: 6 against the USA, 0: 1 against Costa Rica and 0: 4 against Cuba).

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