All about the assists: standout contributions again for Polish players across Europe this weekend (and what it might mean for the national team)

Image via @staderennais and @FCPorto on Twitter

Granted, it’s a little odd to be writing about the weekend’s action on a Wednesday, but such is the unfortunately sporadic nature of running this website.

Similar to the weekend prior, there was plenty of Polish goal involvement across Europe’s big leagues, and it was mostly the bigger names achieving this. Much like the article I wrote detailing the goals scored last week, I’ll try and do this in chronological order again. 

Saturday afternoon in the Bundesliga saw Köln and Hoffenheim battle it out for a 2-2 draw, and it was Jakub Kamiński with another meaningful contribution. He’s been a real standout for both club and country this season, and this continued in earnest on the weekend. A speculative but nicely weighted lobbed ball put Said El Mala through in behind the Hoffenheim defence for Köln’s second. 

It has to be said that Kamiński’s pass was not he standout part of the goal, more the fact El Mala was able to hold off three chasing defenders before getting the ball past the keeper, but nonetheless it goes down as an assist for Kamiński. 

I wrote last week about how a lot of football should still (sometimes) be viewed beyond the stat sheet, and in typical contradictory fashion here I am banging on about the numbers this week. It has to be said that many players in the modern game are viewed through statistics, and only a select few are seemingly allowed to be judged more on aesthetics or that dreaded term, “aura”. When it comes to a player like Kamiński, he has often been an entertaining player to watch even if the statistics never quite backed it up, but this season feels like a real step forward for a player who is still only 23. 

Sure to be an important part of Jan Urban’s plans for Poland’s World Cup play-offs in a month’s time, it’s helpful that Kamiński has got some material contribution to match the endeavour he has shown adapting to a more central midfield position in Köln since the winter break. 

Moving on to Sunday afternoon, a crunch match in Serie A saw Atalanta face Napoli in Bergamo, and the home side ran out 2-1 victors. Nicola Zalewski found himself taking the corners as he often has, and managed to swing in a great ball for the Atalanta equaliser on the hour mark. 

As written last week, Zalewski has been something of a mainstay in the Atalanta team since manager Raffaele Palladino joined in November, and it has proved greatly helpful to the fortunes of both the player and the club. 

Poland have plenty of decent set-piece takers, not least Piotr Zieliński, but it’s nice to know that Zalewski has notched at least two assists from corners that I can think of this season for Atalanta. 

The only unfortunate news is that Zalewski will be suspended for Poland’s play-off against Albania, but should they get through that game then he would be eligible for a potential second play-off. 

Also on Sunday afternoon, Rennes travelled to Auxerre in Ligue 1 and somewhat dismantled the home team, going 3-0 up before half-time and holding on to that scoreline for the remainder of the game. Sebastian Szymański was again in the Rennes starting XI after his January move, and having started the last three games he has managed to get an assist in two of them. 

Sunday’s assist was really quite spectacular, picking the ball up on the right hand side of the pitch after a long diagonal from his teammate. Keeping the ball after an initial ball down the line was blocked, Szymański cut inside and floated a fantastic pass to striker Esteban Lepaul, who finished well for Rennes’ second goal of the afternoon.

Szymański has often played better for his clubs than for Poland, and he does remain something of an unknown quantity when he wears the national team shirt. He often seems to drift through games, but on occasion he manages goals and assists albeit not appearing to contribute much else. 

I think one of Szymański’s drawbacks is that his actions on the pitch are often very eye-catching, and when he only does the simple things in games they can be overlooked by fans and pundits. 

Another slight drawback with Szymański is despite always being a willing runner, he does seem to pick up minor injuries with relative frequency. This shouldn’t discount him from selection, in fact quite the opposite. I would argue that for the first ten minutes he was on the pitch for Poland against Holland in November prior to injury, when he was in a two-man midfield with Zieliński, it looked like it was working really well. 

Sunday night in Porto and another start at his new club for Oskar Pietuszewski, as table-topping Porto took on Rio Ave. It was Pietuszewski who got the assist for the only goal in a slim 1-0 victory for the hosts, and in terms of viewing pleasure it did have something of a throwback quality. 

Here is Pietuszewski, a young teenage winger, beating a defender to a ball played down the channel before hitting the byline and cutting it back to his teammate for a tap-in. Much in the same vein that earlier in the day’s Premier League action Liverpool turned to a teenage winger with a throwback style in Rio Ngumoha to help them to victory, Pietuszewski was by far the biggest threat to the Rio Ave defence for the hour or so he played. 

Pietuszewski was also heavily involved in, and sadly the reason for, Porto’s disallowed second goal. After carrying the ball on the wing, he cut inside and released the ball at the perfect time for his other two teammates to combine on the edge of the area. Unfortunately, Pietuszewski was marginally offside when he initially received the ball.

The good news is that Pietuszewski has been playing just about as regularly as could be hoped for since his move to Portugal, and fans and pundits have been raving about him in the wake of Sunday’s performance. 

There has been a lot of talk from some quarters that Pietuszewski’s development should not be rushed, that it’s justified that he has not been given a senior call-up yet by Jan Urban and all the rest, but quite frankly it feels like we’re past that point now. I can understand the reticence given we’ve seen what that kind of pressure on young talents, and especially young Polish talents of recent years, can sometimes hobble their careers for the next few years. To be frank however, I think the time for caution with Pietuszewski has been and gone. 

Some pundits are having him as a nailed-on starter for Poland against Albania with Zalewski’s suspension, and whilst I wouldn’t go that far I think it would be a good opportunity for Pietuszewski to start a game in a familiar position and see what we already know he is capable of. Whether or not Urban sees it that way or not is another matter, but I’m confident that Pietuszewski will at the very least receive a call-up for these play-offs. 

On account of the excitement (and nervousness) building in anticipation of the next international break, there will be another article next week detailing those on the fringes of the squad, who might find themselves called-up and who might find themselves dropped. 

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