Poland vs Bosnia & Herzegovina preview: expected line-up and more
Tonight, Poland look to open their Nations League campaign with a win at home against Bosnia & Herzegovina. The Biało-Czerwoni can be considered slight favourites all things considered, and pretty much anything other than a victory in an attractive manner will continue to have pressure build over Jan Urban’s position.
Some pundits are already suggesting that fewer than seven points from these next four games will see Urban lose his job, and whilst I wouldn’t be quite so declarative there is a real tension forming during this international break.
Urban hasn’t helped himself with some odd choices of personnel and comments in the media, much of which has been spoken about in the last week. Furthermore, when speaking yesterday to TVP Sport he referenced the extended period of games and preparation that Poland are going to be navigating over the coming weeks, suggesting that playing four games in eleven days will represent a challenge for everyone.
As many have pointed out, for a lot of these players this kind of rhythm isn’t a challenge and it is in fact pretty normal at all of their clubs to be playing at a weekend, then in mid-week and repeatedly so. Again, perhaps this is pedantry and semantics but for Urban to be making a few casual errors in how he is communicating his point just adds fuel to the suggestion maybe he’s not the right man anymore, barely a year into the job.
The second thing many people wanted to point out about Urban commenting that the upcoming schedule will be really physically tough on the players is that he could well have called up more players. There was a little bit of reminiscing over Czesław Michniewicz selecting 40 players for a Nations League camp four years ago, granted few of those players are still present so maybe it wasn’t reflective of the future, but nevertheless that camp was seemingly used as a sounding board to check out who might best serve the national team going forward.
It would’ve be nice to see something similar again this time around, especially in the context of some of the players who aren’t part of this squad and most certainly could or should be.
We already know this morning that Norbert Wojtuszek and Wojciech Mońka will not be present in tonight’s squad, and whilst I expected Wojtuszek to be absent I am a little disheartened that Mońka has been left out. I’m sure he will get his chance over the coming matches, but again it’s bad optics to be uprooting someone from the youth teams when there are important games, only to not use them to the fullest extent.
Without further ado, a look at the latest reported line-up for Poland:
I would like to strongly reiterate at this point that I think this starting XI is far too defensive and that there are simple changes that could be made without risks. There is some debate over whether it will be Bartosz Slisz or Wiktor Nowak as that third midfielder, but given the way Urban has been annoying supporters this last week I have a feeling he will do so again by selecting the former.
Also it’s pretty much a given now that Poland are switching to a back four, but I feel like a lot of the positions for the players will be flexible. It’s essentially going to be some kind of 4-4-2 without the ball and likely a fluid 3-4-3 in possession. Jakub Kamiński will no doubt end up quite central, and one of either Piotr Zieliński or more likely Sebastian Szymański will end up wider when that happens.
Regardless, Bosnia & Herzegovina are coming off the back of a strong World Cup campaign and are a good team in their own right, so it won’t be easy for Poland to win. I still expect them to, as they are at home and they have more quality in certain areas, but it will be close.
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