Sebastian Larsson has set his sights on forcing his way into Sweden's squad for the Euro 2008 finals by shining in Birmingham's survival bid.Larsson feels he made a major breakthrough with his country earlier this month when he made his full debut in the friendly international with Turkey.
The former Arsenal player had previously felt that he was down the pecking order with Swedish coach Lars Lagerback.
Now Larsson is focusing on performing well for the next three months with Blues and hoping it will be enough to clinch his place in the squad for Austria and Switzerland this summer.
Larsson said: "It has been a dream of mine to play for my country for a long time and pulling on the jersey against Turkey was a great feeling.
"It came at a good stage for me because Sweden have qualified for Euro 2008 and there are only a couple of games left before they are going to announce the squad for the finals.
"That is another aim for me, to get into the squad for the Euro 2008 finals. I felt I did okay against Turkey and I was pleased with my overall performance.
"I think I could possibly make the squad but my biggest chance of doing that is performing well week in and week out for Birmingham City and that is what I am concentrating on at the moment."
Larsson has been impressed with the impact made by McLeish in his three months at St Andrews and the way he wants City to perform.
He said: "All I can say is that the manager is trying to push a lot about playing and believing in our ability and what we can do, that we can go to tough places and get points.
"He wants us to express ourselves when we go forward but also to be a very solid team and hard to beat.
"We have a big two or three months coming up and everyone is determined to make sure we stay in the Premier League."
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