Poland’s October squad: Few major changes as Urban looks to consolidate on strong showings

Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter

In the near-month since an article was last posted to this website, there’s been a number of things going on in the world of Polish football which I considered turning into a fully-fledged diatribe, but in the end decided to try and sum it up at the beginning of this one.

In no short order, we’ve seen Robert Lewandowski continue to score at a very respectable rate for Barcelona, Nicola Zalewski get injured (more on that later), Piotr Zieliński warming the bench at Inter Milan, Jakub Kamiński earn himself Player of the Month for Köln and Michał Skóraś find his feet at his new club in Gent (again, more on that later).

Going through the list of players that Jan Urban has deemed to call-up to these two games, a friendly against New Zealand and a qualifier away to Lithuania, I thought it best not go through player-by-player but merely scan through in position order and pick out what I believe to be the most interesting talking points.

Firstly, we should mention that the rotating cast of “fourth-choice” goalkeeper keeps on here, with Kacper Tobiasz now in that spot which had for so long seemed to belong to Bartosz Mrozek. I’ve nothing against either Mrozek or Tobiasz, but it does seem that this spot is essentially the most pointless in the squad beyond warm-up and training purposes and seems to be handed to whichever Ekstraklasa-based keeper seems in good enough form for the time being. 

Defensively the squad remains unchanged, and it’s been nice to see some of Matty Cash’s international form carrying over into what has undoubtedly been an underwhelming start for Aston Villa. Cash has been one of few consistently high-performers in an otherwise under-performing Villa team, and given how good he was for Poland in the last break here’s hoping it can happen again.

In midfield is where we see the most significant change, largely due to the muscle injury that has been keeping Nicola Zalewski out of action for Atalanta over the past few weeks. In his place comes a deserved return for the aforementioned Skóraś, who has decided to stay in Belgium after leaving Club Brugge, heading to equally picturesque city of Ghent to ply his trade. 

Skóraś did make a couple of early season appearances for Brugge before the move to Gent was finalised late in the window. Two goals and two assists in four games so far is very respectable and I personally am pleased to see him return to the Poland squad. Skóraś is set to start again for Gent tonight, and barring anything unfortunate I can see him starting one or both of these games for Poland as well. 

The other midfield addition is Kacper Kozłowski, a player I have been itching to see play for the “proper” Polish national team after several years in the wilderness (and the age group teams). Long time readers of this website will know how much of a fan I am of Kozłowski, and as he fast approaches his 22nd birthday we do not speak about him as the mercurial talent he was considered when he broke through into senior football. 

Reasons are complicated, but when you look at it rationally you understand why he is in some people’s eyes not worth persisting with at this point. It’s a bit of a worry that his last time on the pitch for Poland’s senior side was four years ago, and that after several periods on loan in Belgium and Holland after Brighton’s acquisition of Kozłowski, he ends up in the Turkish Süper Lig. A good competitive league often full of entertainment, but not the top level of European football I think it’s fair to say. 

For me, you could easily reason that we should have had Kacper Urbański in this squad over Kozłowski, were it not for the fact that the former is still getting up to speed at Legia Warszawa. Urbański is younger and is probably more promising a player still, although only a year separates them. Kozłowski does have a goal to his name this season in club football however, so you can argue that he is more deserving to be in this squad from a statistical perspective. 

Simply put, there will in future be space in Poland squads for both Urbański and Kozłowski to exist, as despite their similarities they are both technical attacking midfield players which the national team should be looking to integrate again as soon as possible for the future. Right now and for these two games however, I think Kozłowski is the correct choice.

Up front is again very similar, save for the omission of Adam Buksa with a broken cheekbone. Lewandowski will likely be his usual talismanic self, Karol Świderski has been in good form at Panathinaikos and to be completely frank, none of us really have the first clue how well Krzysztof Piątek is playing over in Qatar beyond the reading of the stat sheets. 

I don’t wish to do the Qatari league any disservice, but it’s hard to discern quite what the level is like. From my (albeit limited) viewing of the ever-growing Saudi Pro League, you can see it is on a similar par to some of the more minor Western European leagues such as Portugal or Holland, but as for the Qatari top division we see less of that than their gulf neighbours. 

No doubt there are some notable names: Marco Veratti, Roberto Firmino and Aleksandar Mitrovic are all also lining up for Qatari teams these days, but as for the average level of play it is hard to discern. In any case, Piątek has scored some goals and that more than anything should be an indicator that he is still capable of good performances. 

Poland begin their games this October with the friendly against New Zealand next Thursday night, before their trip to Lithuania the following Sunday. 

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