Bernd Stange is hoping to build on football's recent wave of popularity in Belarus and inspire an upset against England.

Belarusian football is enjoying its most successful period with the national team having reached its highest FIFA ranking, 57th, last month while club side BATE Borisov are competing in the Champions League group stage for the first time.

It has created a surge of popularity in the sport which can in some part be traced to the arrival of Stange a year ago.

Since taking charge last July the 60-year-old German has revamped the national team, opting for a youth policy which, while unsuccessful at first, has since led to wins against Holland 1-0 to finish their Euro 2008 campaign, before friendly draws with Germany and Argentina.

And Stange is hoping his young side can add the name of England to that list in front of a sell-out crowd at the 40,000-capacity Dinamo Stadium in Minsk.

"Football in Belarus is now booming. We have a run for football," he told PA Sport.

"Usually we had just 2,000 or 3,000 in the stadiums and it was not good. But after we played teams like Holland and Argentina, and we played well against them, now the crowds are coming to the stadium.

"Now we have England and of course it will be difficult. We are only little Belarus. It will be a European sensation if we even get a draw.

"But I cannot tell my young players only to go for a draw, we must be optimistic and play to win."

Belarus have shown signs of their improvement in the World Cup qualification campaign so far, with an impressive 3-1 win against Andorra preceded by a 1-0 loss in Ukraine, when a debatable last-minute penalty denied them a deserved point.

England are bidding to register their best ever start to a qualifying campaign by chalking up a fourth successive win in Minsk, after the triumphs over Andorra, Croatia and Kazakhstan.

Fabio Capello's side will be favourites to triumph in the Dinamo stadium but Jermain Defoe, who scored as a substitute against Kazakhstan, is adamant they will pay their opponents full respect.

"The lads are confident. You can imagine after the Croatia game last month that everyone was buzzing. We want to keep it going and got another result at the weekend," the striker said.

"We will be watching the videos on Belarus, so everyone in their minds will know exactly what they are good at and what they are not good at.

"No game at this level is easy. On Saturday we had to be patient and once the first goal had gone in, we went on from there.

"We won't underestimate them, but if we work hard and pass the ball like we can do we should get the three points."

John Terry and Ashley Cole have been ruled out for the visitors through injury.