Casting an eye back over the international break just gone, and looking ahead to Poland’s games in November (plus U-21s chat!)

Images via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter

With the conclusion of October’s international break, I thought it’d be worth taking a look at it as a whole in retrospect, plus throwing it forward to the potential problems of the next international break as well as the stunning work being done by Jerzy Brzęczek and the players at U-21 level.

In hindsight, all the worrying and negativity in the light of the narrow friendly win over New Zealand seemed like ancient history after the particularly convincing win away in Lithuania to shore up Poland’s second place in the qualifying group. Yes it was “only” Lithuania, but you have to beat what’s in front of you and it’s not like the previous incarnation of this Poland side made light work of them.

I’m not the first person to say this but I will repeat it: it’s such a shame that the national team was in so bad a place mentally and tactically in Michał Probierz’s final game as Selekcjoner away to Finland, otherwise there is every chance Poland would be tied with the Netherlands for first place.

Back to the situation as we find it, and it was really heartening to see such a convincing defensive performance and clean sheet against Lithuania. Jan Bednarek and Jakub Kiwior are obviously now also teammates at club level, and the predictions we had about it positively impacting the national team look like they’re coming true. 

All that being said, it’s not like there weren’t reasons to be concerned. Jan Urban was forthright in his defence of Sebastian Szymański after his impactful display on Sunday night, Urban’s decision to start him after another below-par showing in the friendly vindicated by his performance in the match that mattered. 

On this topic, I saw a few pundits suggesting that we shouldn’t treat Szymański as some huge difference-maker in the vein of a Piotr Zieliński or similar, but more of a squad player who often comes up with the goods. I personally think that’s a bit reductive and isn’t really accurate, largely because it’s almost like we’re retroactively deciding Szymański isn’t actually all that brilliant, and to be fair he is a consistently inconsistent player in a Poland shirt. 

I just don’t like this line of thinking that because he has played well in this last game for Poland that Szymański’s place as a starter is now nailed on for the next six months. He’s good enough to be thought of as someone who can impact a game like he did on Sunday, but Szymański is now of the age where he needs to show it more consistently for his country just like he does at club level. 

Another heavy topic which was being discussed as early as half-time on Sunday night was the difficult task Urban faces of replacing the suspended Bartosz Slisz in that holding midfield “6” role. There are few options of quality, we saw against New Zealand that Jakub Piotrowski is unable to play there with any real success, and Maxi Oyedele isn’t playing much now he’s moved to Strasbourg (although injury is a factor).

In terms of more experienced options you have Taras Romanczuk and another injury-ravaged option in Jakub Moder, but more on him later. As for those less experienced you have Jakub Kałuziński playing regularly in Turkey and Antoni Kozubal is playing very well for the U-21s, again something which we will come back to. 

Then you’ve also got curious options like Łukasz Łakomy, a player I really like, now playing his football week-in, week-out in Belgium with OH Leuven. He’s never been called up to the senior Polish squad, and you do feel at age 24 he might’ve missed the boat a little. However, he’s a versatile midfielder playing well in top-flight football every week, and he has Champions League experience to boot. Very much a left-field option, but one I wouldn’t be against (that said, maybe not to play the Dutch in his first game).

Let’s address the double injury news reported yesterday by Tomasz Włodarczyk, the first of which being that in the course of victory against Lithuania, Robert Lewandowski suffered a hamstring strain which may keep him on the sidelines for at least the next ten days, with Barcelona playing their first Clasico of the season in 12 days time. 

Now I’m not a doctor, but generally speaking hamstring strains take between 2-3 weeks to fully heal, which would rule Lewandowski out of Barcelona’s next two matches (one of which being the Clasico) and could keep him out of a third. Depending on the severity of this injury, Lewandowski’s involvement in the next international break could well be called into question too, which would be a big concern. 

Notably in the last few days there has been increased speculation in the Spanish press that this will be Lewandowski’s last season as a Barcelona player, which is believable. With this injury, those rumours will only gather place and the questioning of his place at club level will intensify further, but he’s an experienced player who will still score important and regular goals for Barcelona until the end of the season. 

More positive news was reported by Włodarczyk later in the day, as news came through that Jakub Moder will be fit enough to begin training in the next few days. Injury has meant Moder hasn’t actually played yet this season, but he was a bit of a revelation for Feyenoord after his move there this past January and hopefully he can get back playing well and regularly ahead of the next international break as with Swiss’s suspension Poland are desperate for another quality midfielder. 

That being said, it may well come too soon for Moder given his patchy injury record since the massive time he spent out of action with that ACL suffered in 2022, an injury which thanks to complications didn’t see him play competitively again for over 18 months. Whether he will be ready and able to play that holding midfield role for Poland against the Dutch will surely only be a question of fitness, unless Urban chooses to opt for youth over experience. 

If he does decide that, then what better time to dip into the U-21s than now. A stunning pair of victories for them in the past week. I wrote briefly about how good they looked against Montenegro, but to go away to Sweden and blow them away 0-6 is a real indicator that Jerzy Brzęczek’s tactics and the squad he has at his disposal could make the step up. 

Of course, two members of the U-21s have played for the senior side before, Kacper Urbański and the aforementioned Antoni Kozubal. I strongly suspect these two may well be named by Urban to the squad for November’s qualifiers, obviously Kozubal would be a leading candidate for the “6” in the absence of the suspended Slisz. 

The pick of the six goals scored by Poland was the last, a lovely lob by Tomasz Pieńko to seal his hat-trick. Considering there has been a lot of talk in the Polish press of late about the future of the striker role for the national team, it was refreshing to see such a clinical display, even if Pieńko isn’t technically a natural striker.

Oskar Pietuszewski and Jan Faberski look incredible young talents on the wings, too. It feels like we have waited for ages to see Faberski break through into senior football proper, and it’s finally happening this season for him on loan at PEC Zwolle, but it’s Pietuszewski grabbing most of the headlines and for good reason. I just hope when he inevitably departs Jagiellonia Białystok for the next step up in his career it isn’t too much too soon, like we saw a few years ago with Kacper Kozłowski going straight from the Ekstraklasa to Brighton and never even playing a competitive game for them. 

Perhaps that note of caution is the wrong note on which to end, but more positively we should reflect on the fact that Urban’s Poland is progressing nicely both in terms of play and results. November’s match against the Dutch will be extremely tough, but for now there are real reasons for optimism, and as for the U-21s you can’t speak highly enough of the last two games. 

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