Mixed feelings around Poland yet again, but the negativity needs tempering

Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter

I wanted to write something summing up the last week for Poland, and the friendlies which have decidedly soured the mood for many who follow the national team.

My primary argument against this would be that we’re in such a healthier place both in terms of the mood around the Polish national team, not to mention the quality of football we’re seeing for the most part, than this time a year ago. 

Not everyone sees it this way, however, and there is a lot of nuance to be discussed. I’d like to try and balance my perhaps over-optimistic viewpoint with some of the criticisms which are absolutely fair to level at Jan Urban, even if I think some of the tone of opinion the last week has been overly negative.

First up, let’s deal with some of the complaining around who was even called-up to begin with, let alone who saw decent playing time. My article from last week largely dealt with this, but there is plenty of fair debate to be had here, especially due to the fact many of Urban’s choices seem conservative. For all the talk of experimenting, these experiments largely only consisted of one half against Ukraine when Poland were already 2-0 down, and it felt like there was so much change it was incredibly hard to tell who might have a shot at remaining in this squad come the autumn. 

Despite this, the undisputed winner of these games in regard to impressing fans, pundits and seemingly Urban and his new teammates alike, was Kacper Potulski. There can be no doubt that Potulski could well end up being a regular in these squads going forward, but we’ve been here before with younger Polish players and this does mean we need some perspective. 

Poland’s biggest worry going forward is, ironically, their defence. This isn’t really a new thing, as going back a number of years more or less every Selekcjoner has found this to be an issue. Urban has suggested he’d like to go to a back four at some point in the future, although to be frank in possession this would likely remain some variation on a back three anyway given the fact Jakub Kiwior, the current leading candidate to play at left back, isn’t exactly comfortable going forward in the same way as more traditional candidates for that role. 

The issue is that all the other left back options for Poland are distinctly average. You have Michał Gurgul, who is young but is more defensively minded like Kiwior. There’s the slightly underrated Tymoteusz Puchacz, who has experience with the national team but doesn’t play at the top level at this point in his career. Then there’s Michał Karbownik, who is essentially a converted midfielder, but he hasn’t had a look in for Poland since Fernando Santos was heading up the national team. 

Perhaps all these “average” options wouldn’t do badly, and I think if Urban is serious about having the national team play with a back four again then any of these three would need to be called-up. 

Of course, this would only go some way to remedying the other massive problem with Poland’s defending, which is the fact that despite not giving up many chances, they are giving up good ones and conceding with virtually every other shot on target. Pairing that with the fact that in attack Poland are making more chances that their opponents, but not taking them, this is a horrendous combination. 

It’s now becoming a serious trend, considering that this has basically been the pattern for the last five games Poland have played. They got away with it against Malta and Albania, but crucially not so against Sweden. Then the most typical of this ongoing problem was the game with Ukraine, and it was again very similar against Nigeria albeit with some differences. 

Frankly, Poland need to start showing a level of efficiency in attack that they simply have not been able to this past eight or so months. Symptomatic of this was the fact that both Poland and Ukraine had two glorious opportunities to score on Sunday, Ukraine took both of theirs and Poland’s efforts were well saved. Then we had an extremely profligate Robert Lewandowski against Nigeria, although given that you can count very few of Lewandowski’s 167 national team appearances as poor, he can be excused slightly.

Another issue on Wednesday night in Warszawa was the fact that Poland’s ability to build attacks suffered with Bartosz Slisz at the base of the midfield. I actually thought he had a decent game, but Piotr Zieliński wasn’t expected to drop deeper to collect the ball as he has looked better doing all season. Adding in the fact that Poland looked no better defensively with a holding midfielder like Slisz, and it was sort of rendered pointless having him in the side. If this was part of Urban’s desire to experiment, it would be fair to say this didn’t really tell us anything new. 

Then we had some middle disingenuous commentary yesterday about the fact that even if Poland had made it to the World Cup, on the current level of performance they wouldn’t really be able to do anything of note. I actually disagree slightly, for a few reasons. 

Firstly, thanks to the expansion of the World Cup, several of the best third-placed teams in the groups will go through. Sweden are, in my opinion, likely to finish third in their group so it makes sense that Poland likely would as well. Getting out of the group at a World Cup is only something Poland have done once this century, so that wouldn’t have been nothing. 

Secondly, you get a little bit of the sense that as much as the players said otherwise, there was obvious disappointment and disillusionment surrounding these games because of the fact Poland weren’t jetting off to the tournament this summer, which does go some way to explaining certain elements of the lacklustre performances. Furthermore, it’s not like teams going to the World Cup have excelled in these friendlies either, looking at Sweden for an obvious example and they have lost and drawn their two preparatory matches.

There is a long time now until the Nations League starts in September, and I’d expect us to see some of these issues ironed out by the time the last of the four games finish in early October. Granted there will still be familiar problems, but I don’t think there will be as much negativity as has made itself present as in this last week. 

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