Alexander Hleb fears he may never qualify for the finals of a major
tournament with Belarus.
The Arsenal midfielder is on international duty with this country
at the moment. Over the course of the next week, they face two
beatable teams Luxembourg and then Albania however even a full
six points will not see them reach Euro 2008.
The 26-year-old playmaker has been the leading light of his
national side since 2002 and helped the Under-21s to the finals of
the European Championships in 2004. However success at senior
status has eluded them.
I really want to qualify for a major finals, he said. Your life
in football goes so quickly and I worry when we lose that I might
never manage it but I hope we can make the step up.
Bernd Stange is a good coach, hes got a lot of experience but in
Belarus its difficult to form a very good team. A lot of our
players play in Belarus and its not a great standard when they
jump straight from there to international football they can be a
bit nervous and also dont have the quality.
I try to help him and I hope he can help us qualify for the next
major finals. We have some good systems in place but still have
plenty to learn and will need time before we can achieve what we
want.