Poland’s Nations League squad: glaring omissions and bizarre decisions - but still some positives
It’s taken me nearly half the day to recover from the immense sense of annoyance felt this morning watching Jan Urban name his Poland squad for the upcoming Nations League fixtures against Bosnia & Hervegovina, Sweden and Romania.
Backing up a little bit, and yesterday I felt confident that we’d see a squad very similar to the one I proposed we might, right up until the first murmurings last night that actually, these call-ups would have at least one major disappointment, and this was then compounded even further.
I am, of course, talking about the decision to include Karol Świderski at the expense of Karol Czubak. Urban has decided against Czubak, who has scored five goals in eight Ekstraklasa matches to start the season, and plumped for Świderski who has scored three goals this calendar year across two clubs and the national team.
Now I don’t want to give in to hyperbole here, but this is borderline insanity from Jan Urban. I can’t profess to having watched every single minute of both players in 2026, but I’ve seen a lot more to be impressed by from Czubak than I have from Świderski, and this is before you even get into the statistical reasons for what seems to be everyone’s annoyance.
In response, Urban said of Czubak’s one cap for Poland so far in June that he "touched the ball once […] the demands in the national team are much higher than in the Ekstraklasa”. There is a lot to hate about this statement, the first such thing being that Czubak was brought on in the 89th minute when Poland were losing to Nigeria, no wonder he wasn’t very involved. Secondly, if the level of the national team is so much higher than the Ekstraklasa, why is a player like Świderski who looks so painfully below the level of the national team in the same league being preferred here?
I do get that Świderski is a hard worker, more keen to do the work helping out Robert Lewandowski, and Czubak is more of a typical forward less likely to be covering large distances. However, Adrian Benedyczak and Mateusz Żukowski are also capable of playing off Lewandowski in a similar way to how Świderski might, which makes this even more baffling.
Let’s move onto one of the other huge errors of judgement (we’re all thinking it), which is the inclusion of Filip Rózga over Bartosz Mazurek. Rózga has just come back from injury, and has played 29 minutes in the league. In the same competition, Mazurek has played almost 400 minutes and has a goal and two assists to his name, not to mention minutes in Europe. Urban’s reasoning is that he can’t call up everyone, and I’m sorry, but this is another bizarre inclusion at the expense of someone in much better form and I really don’t think it can be justified.
The last of the really terrible omissions is that there is still no place for Michał Gurgul. According to Urban, he doesn’t believe Gurgul is at the level required to play for Poland yet. Again, another statement completely lacking in objectivity because by almost any metric you would argue Gurgul is the best player his position in the Ekstraklasa, although let’s not get into those double standards from Urban again.
Lastly we have Marcel Reguła missing out, and whilst this is a shame it is reportedly due to the fact that he is sorely needed by the U-21 side, so whilst I’m not ecstatic about this I do at least understand it.
As for an inclusion which I find a little odd, I wrote yesterday that maybe this camp would come too soon for Kacper Urbański, and yet here he is. Don’t just take my word for it - Jan Urban himself said this morning that perhaps it is too soon to have called up Urbański. You’re the one including him, now you’re saying it might not be the right moment? Goodness me.
This is before you get into the other thing Urban said about Urbański, which is that whilst he’s been good in the Ekstraklasa he didn’t show enough in Górnik Zabrze’s ultimately fruitless European qualifers. This again begs the question - why call him up? One of the big reasons for Urbański’s better form to start this season is that he is out of the spotlight again, at least relatively speaking. Now he’s going to be back under the magnifying glass, and he’s already getting told the terms of his appointment to the national team by the Selekcjoner before he’s even shown up to the camp, which doesn’t seem like a very healthy thing.
Another mild criticism would be the inclusion of Norbert Wojtuszek, a player I like and who probably should have been called up earlier in my opinion. He’s had a dip in form, and suddenly he is earning his second call-up? Very odd, and on paper it looks like he’ll be the third-choice right back. Meanwhile, the only recognised left back in the squad is Tymoteusz Puchacz.
Reading between the lines, and the six central defenders included, we might not be seeing that change to a back four that we had been expecting. A real shame, because the personnel are now in place to use that system, supposedly Urban’s preferred option. That said, if you don’t even appoint a second left back because you think he’s not at the level despite very clearly being best in class in the domestic league, what does it matter anyway.
It’s just really bizarre decision after really bizarre decision from Urban here, each one compounding another and I wasn’t exactly filled with good will after his comments, which didn’t really seem to justify or explain the odd choices he made. I get that coaches, like fans, have favourites. Doesn’t necessarily mean you have to include them every time, though, does it?
On the plus side, we have deserved returns for Marcin Bułka and Puchacz, as well as deserved potential debuts for Wojciech Mońka and Wiktor Nowak. Benedyczak, too, although this seemed so blindingly obvious I don’t really like giving too much credit.
That really seems to be one of the main issues for me, is that even when trying to be positive and saying that Urban has made some good decisions here, they are very obvious choices that he should be making anyway. Combine that with the circus forming over calling up Świderski, and really there should be little to no praise for Urban over this squad, at least before a game has been played.
It really feels to me that these call-ups mark a turning point in public opinion for Urban. We’ve seen this a fair few times now in the last few years: start off with rebuilding, some good play, achieving a few good results along with it and then hitting a wall where it all starts to go backwards. I’m really hoping this isn’t the case but it’s not an optimistic mood around Poland on the back of this squad announcement.
Paired with Lewandowski’s comments yesterday about wanting the next generation brought through as soon as possible, it’s starting to feel like the beginning of the end in terms of the atmosphere.
Again, I really hope I’m wrong because some of the work Urban has done so far has been easy on the eye, but the same was true of Michał Probierz and we all know how that ended.
Fingers crossed we’ll all be in a better mood next week, when I’ll be back to preview the first of Poland’s four games in this International break.
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