BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

Mon Nov 21, 2005

Arsenal midfielder Hleb voted Belarus best player

MINSK, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Arsenal midfielder Alexander Hleb has been voted Belarus's Player of the Year in a nationwide poll of the country's soccer experts conducted by the sports daily Pressbol.

Hleb received 200 first-place votes out of 303 respondents, the newspaper said on Monday.

It was the third top award for the 24-year-old playmaker, who joined the English premier league club from Bundesliga side VfB Stuttgart for 15 million euros ($18.25 million) in June.

He also won in 2002 and 2003 and finished second behind Dynamo Moscow midfielder Maxim Romashchenko last year.

Krylya Sovietov Samara midfielder Denis Kovba was a distant second with 20 first-place votes while Sampdoria striker Vitaly Kutuzov finished third and Romashchenko fourth.

Source:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldFootballNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reuters.com:20051121:MTFH97924_2005-11-21_15-50-05_L21772113:1

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