Poland’s November squad: Borderline experimental from Jan Urban, with pros and cons
Earlier today, Jan Urban named his Poland squad for the upcoming games against Romania and Sweden, which will bring an end already to this Nations League campaign.
It’s a bold roll of the dice from Urban, who has been under increasing pressure with the impression that he may well be replaced in his post sometime soon. Indeed, some were surprised he has been kept on this long, and I have to say after the way the last international break ended I do understand why people would’ve thought we would be seeing a new Selekcjoner announce these call-ups.
However, Urban is still in a job and he has selected a really interesting, if flawed, Poland squad for the next few weeks. Let’s attempt to break it down, position by position.
Goalkeepers
It won’t come as news to most of you reading this that there are injury problems affecting Marcin Bułka and Kamil Grabara, who would be the natural first-choice options here. Instead, we see a triumvirate of Sławomir Abramowicz, Mateusz Kochalski and Bartłomiej Drągowski. Without Łukasz Skorupski, this is a very thin set of goalkeepers to have and in my opinion, none of them are really at the level of a national team player. Abramowicz is a good young goalkeeper, but he has shown himself to have the occasional error in him. Kochalski is talented at shot-stopping, but he hasn’t been incredible this season in the Ekstraklasa as far as I’m concerned, at least not to be Poland’s starting goalkeeper. As for Drągowski’s inclusion, I can only assume he is here on the basis that Urban has his favourites and Drągowski is seemingly one of them.
In my opinion, whatever is going on behind the scenes preventing Skorupski from returning to the national team needs to be forgotten for the sake of this two weeks. I understand Urban’s words about looking to the future, so with that in mind I can only hope we end up seeing Abramowicz as to me he is the best option of the three. Marcel Łubik may have been a better choice than any of them, but alas.
Defenders
A return for Kamil Piątkowski, which I have to say I wasn’t really expecting, although I don’t mind it. This signals to me we may end up seeing Poland use a back three again in at least one of these games, however I wouldn’t bet on it. Piątkowski’s best football has always been in a back three, so the idea of trying him as part of a back four doesn’t seem like an idea that will bear fruit, but I may be wrong.
It’s been a real whirlwind week for Oskar Kubiak, and even if you get the sense that he’s partly been included in this squad on the back of the intense attention he’s received, I think you’d be hard-pressed to say it isn’t deserved. I do find it interesting how quick Urban was to tell everyone this morning how Michał Gurgul and Jakub Krzyżanowski are the future of the left back position, although he hasn’t included either of them here.
I don’t really get the point of continuing to have Tomasz Kędziora in these squads, as although he does provide a level of experience I don’t really ever see him getting any minutes in games that matter unless there are serious fitness or injury issues.
Midfielders
This is the area where Urban has gone really bold with his selections, and I actually quite like most of them. Bartosz Mazurek, Łukasz Poręba and Marcel Reguła are all named here for the first time (technically true in Reguła’s case). It didn’t feel like there was as much appetite for Mazurek’s inclusion this time around as there was last time, although for me he should really have been present last time as well. The situation with Poręba does feel a little bit like it’s come out of nowhere, but given the dearth of Polish midfielders of that more defensive nature playing at the top level, it only makes sense to provide him with a chance here.
With the exception of Poręba, you wouldn’t say that there was a true holding midfielder in this squad, but that’s no bad thing. This could, if Urban gets the right balance and structure in the team, be a really dynamic and attack-minded midfield. Granted, it’s a big “if”, but as I alluded to earlier perhaps this is a case of Urban going bold whilst he remains Selekcjoner.
It’s a real shame that we don’t see Jakub Kamiński or Oskar Pietuszewski included here however. I know there have been fitness and injury issues and neither of them are playing regularly, but certainly in the case of Kamiński he has proved himself so important to Poland under Urban. Pietuszewski is also such a great option off the bench, and this squad does feel like it is light on wingers.
Also drawing the ire of many is the repeated inclusion of Karol Świderski. Okay, calling him up here is perhaps a little more justified than last time, but I’m still not having it being for any reason other than Urban likes him and his work-rate, which the Selekcjoner specifically mentioned this morning. I don’t disagree that Świderski is a hard worker, but there are plenty of statistics which prove that other Ekstraklasa forwards (because he is a forward, regardless of what Urban and the graphic says) that show others who win just as many duels, if not more.
Strikers
Hopefully, as Urban himself has said, Robert Lewandowski can now adapt better to having to travel such a large distance having done it once before. I’ve no qualms about having Mateusz Żukowski here again as he keeps scoring goals for Magdeburg, so it’s now about getting him the ball in these positions and reminding ourselves that he is not necessarily at the same level as Lewandowski, so let’s be as patient as we can be whilst he builds understanding with those around him. We saw flashes in the Sweden game of what Żukowski can do well and not so well, so now it’s about playing to those strengths more often when possible. I’m also heartened by Urban’s words that Adrian Benedyczak will get some minutes in these games, as it feels like it’s been forever since he managed to get called-up and not get injured.
The continued omission of Karol Czubak is a little bit of a sore point, as he provides a certain quality when it comes to being good in the air and a bit of a different profile to the other forwards in this squad. Unfortunate, but not overwhelmingly annoying like last time.
I would say that overall, I’m about 75% happy with this squad, which all things considered is probably the best you could ever hope for. Sticking points include the entire selection of goalkeepers, and the continued insistence that Świderski is here on merit, but even some of the more middling picks like Przemysław Frankowski and Tymoteusz Puchacz seem like perfectly reasonable choices here.
Also, not to give Urban too much credit considering how he stuffed up almost the whole of the last international break, but there does seem to be a clearer sense of providing his opinion and explaining his choices adequately this time around. The majority of the players he has dropped here are no great loss in the eyes of supporters, and for that reason I think that public opinion on this squad has been more positive than the last one because fans and pundits can see that he is really being bold with a lot of these call-ups.
I keep coming back to that word, “bold”. It’s the first thing I thought seeing the full squad list today and I can’t shake that feeling that if this experimentation works it might well create some positively uncomfortable conversations, and also that it might end up being that what looks for all intents and purposes to be a last roll of the dice from Urban, actually works out well for Poland as well as for him.
When we’ve seen other Selekcjoners in recent times on the brink going into games, they’ve often gone way too safe with their choices, and I’m primarily thinking back to Fernando Santos here. That Urban seems to have gone almost completely the other way in terms of his thinking speaks volumes that he genuinely has dialled out the noise around his position and is doing exactly what he said this morning, he is trying to build for the future.
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