Jan Urban is Poland’s new Selekcjoner. The best of a bad bunch?

Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter

In anticipation of the official press conference this lunchtime, I thought it best to get out something slightly ahead of things after the official announcement yesterday that Jan Urban is the new head coach of the Polish national team.

I’m actually on holiday in Poland at the moment, so it should seem fortuitous then that I might be able to gauge the reaction of friends to Urban’s appointment. So far, complete apathy.

Potential reasons for this are numerous and well-documented. We have the ignominious end to Michał Probierz’s time in charge, Cezary Kulesza’s unopposed re-election as PZPN president, and the fact that it would be fair to say Urban was few people’s dream choice as Selekcjoner.

If we look at the available candidates, most would have wanted Maciej Skorża, but he’s happy in Japan and obviously didn’t want to work under the current PZPN administration (who can blame him). Marek Papszun was a lot of people’s preferred choice the last time this job came up, but again this was perhaps too bold a choice to make in such a delicate situation, because as far as I can tell there was nowhere near the same clamour as back in 2023. 

Then we came to those whose initials began with J: Jerzy Brzęczek, Jan Urban and Jacek Magiera. A return for Brzęczek seemed almost inevitable at one point, and speaking as someone who got into watching Poland around the last few games of his tenure I wasn’t exactly hankering for his return. Urban obviously has become Selekcjoner so we’ll delve into that more fully in the following paragraphs. Magiera obviously did very well in the recent past, nearly winning the Ekstraklasa with Śląsk Wrocław, but he did also contribute to them getting relegated this season. 

Of course as usual we had some murmurings that Adam Nawałka was a serious candidate, news which you have to laugh at a little bit. Every time the job of Selekcjoner has come up since 2018, Nawałka’s name has been mentioned. Clearly this was just rumour, but it does amuse me that for all the pundits saying that Polish football should be forward-thinking, we always have to look back to the last person who gave us sustained success as Selekcjoner. 

So, what of Urban? He’s a decent Ekstraklasa manager, with some relative success in the recent past but most of his glory coming over a decade ago. A former player, which normally helps it seems in international football, and someone who has previous experience (albeit 17 years ago) of being an assistant with the national team.

Tactically there is the suggestion that he may return to a flat back four as opposed to the wing-back system favoured by Probierz. I’m not against this, but left-back has been a problem spot for a little while now.

There is the assumption Robert Lewandowski will have the captain’s armband returned to him and that the player’s will not have an issue with this, which I mostly think is true. We have the suggestion from some journalists that Urban will also make Kamil Grabara Poland’s no.1 goalkeeper on the basis he likes bold characters, and this could well happen but probably not straight away.

Speaking of journalists and pundits, Urban seemed like the best “realistic” choice from the moment we knew Probierz wouldn’t continue. There seems to be a real appetite to get behind Urban for the time being, although as I said earlier public opinion may be more indifferent towards his appointment. 

The football Urban will play is likely to fluctuate also. Given he has a real baptism of fire playing the Netherlands in Rotterdam, we should not draw conclusions as he will likely be forced into a defence-first approach. 

For now though it does seem like we have more of a clean slate opportunity than Probierz was perhaps afforded, given there is more time for Urban to prepare for this tricky first fixture. Like I said earlier the imminent (at time of writing) press conference will tell us a bit more about Urban’s plans for Poland, but for now I think it’s a relief to not have the saga of “who wants to be Selekcjoner” for any longer. 

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