Mikheyeu's belief in Belarus bid

By Denis Orlov

Belarus may be in their first UEFA European Under-17 Championship finals, but coach Piotr Mikheyeu is not satisfied with just having earned a berth in Italy.

Coach confident
Although their progress from the qualifying round was low key, defeating Malta and San Marino before a 4-1 defeat by Portugal, Belarus stormed through the Elite round, victories against Russia and hosts Bulgaria taking them through with a match to spare and allowing them to afford a loss to Finland. Mikheyeu is aware that Belarus were not expected to get so far, but he was always confident.

'We were better'
"The fact that we advanced was not too much of a surprise," Mikheyeu told uefa.com. "I saw how the team prepared, I compared them to the others, and I realised that we are not worse to say the least. It turned out, in fact, that we were better."

Tough draw
However, things have not been made easy for them in Tuscany as they have been drawn with England, the hosts and Turkey in Group A - all potential champions. Mikheyeu admits: "We wanted something other than what we got. Ideally, we would have liked to play England, Israel and Switzerland. But we only got England out of those three teams."

England vulnerable
Explaining his reasoning for being happy to play England in their opener in Santa Croce sull'Arno on 3 May, he said: "The English did not have to play in the qualifying round and therefore lack competitive match practice as a team. In my view, the Italians will have the same problem. So far as hosts they have not played a single match and that I think is a minus. However, the strength of Italian sides at any level is obvious."

Open tournament
Indeed, Mikheyeu sees the finals as very open. "Youth football is very unpredictable and there is no side which stand out above all," he said. "The proof of that is the fact that last year's European champions France did not get to finals, while Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic also missed out. The team best prepared for the crunch encounters will prevail. If we compare the two groups I'd say that ours is stronger because after all we have the hosts."

Top-three target
Mikheyeu, appointed in 2003, is aiming high in Italy, and his target is to finish in the top three and qualify for the FIFA U-17 World Championship later this year in Peru. He said: "The most important thing is not to be afraid and to be confident. There is no difference between England, Switzerland or Turkey if you want to beat them."

Thorough preparation
The 54-year-old will be looking for a little help from his fellow coaches in pursuit of that goal. "I will be preparing based on video evidence and conversations with our friends from other sides," he said. "I hope that the Serbo-Montenegrins and the Russians will tell us about England, while the Azeris will have something to say about Turkey. We will study the Italians at the tournament when they play their first match."