Torpedo Zhodino

The cars came first. Zhodino grew around the BelAZ works, and the team that carries the factory's name in full — Torpedo-BelAZ — started life in 1961 as Raketa. The name lasted eight years. From 1969 it was Torpedo, and the players were the Avtozavodtsy, the car-plant men, which is what the town still calls them.

The 1970s and early 1980s belonged to them in a way nothing since has matched. Then the union ended and Torpedo spent years in the second tier before winning the First League in 2001 and going back up.

The first national trophy took until 2016. The second arrived in 2023, and by then the team had learned to finish third — bronze in 2020, then again in 2023 and 2024, the closest they have come to a Belarusian title. The 2024 Super Cup followed, the first in the club's history.

Home is the Torpedo stadium, 6,524 seats, black and white on the terraces to match the shirts. It is a small ground for a side that spent three straight seasons on the podium of the top flight, and on European nights the difference shows.

The club is registered as a limited company, FC Torpedo-BelAZ, and the plant's initials are not decoration: the trucks and the football team share a payroll and a town of fewer than 65,000 people. Whatever Torpedo have won, they have won with that behind them.