What next for Poland after a disappointing extended international break?

Image via @LaczyNasPilka on X

Due to technical difficulties, I never got to write an immediate post-match report about Monday night’s 1-0 loss which Poland suffered against Bosnia & Herzegovina. 

So, with fresh eyes it’s easier to try and look back over the whole of the last few weeks, as many pundits and journalists have been doing in this last 48 hours, but first I would like to dig into a little bit of how I felt the game against Bosnia & Herzegovina went. 

A lot has been said that Bosnia reduced the game to one of chaos, scrappiness and unattractive, simple football. I think there’s elements of truth to this, although it does read as inherently disrespectful. 

The fact is that Poland were, by most metrics, the better team for probably 2/3s of the match. They played more attractive football, they had more shots and they were largely in control. However, that last third of the game was completely dominated by Bosnia. They were in control, they had the match on their terms and they were able to capitalise on it. 

Reasons for Poland ceding this control were, in my opinion, only really two-fold. Matty Cash coming off through injury and Norbert Wojtuszek coming on in his place, and Wiktor Nowak running out of energy. These two things happened very close to one another in the course of the game, and we know what happened from there. 

I don’t want to get into the penalty too much, as it’s stupid from Jan Bednarek but Przemysław Frankowski is beaten far too easily at the outset too. I agree to an extent with Jan Urban that oftentimes those kinds of grabbing motions are not given as fouls elsewhere on the pitch, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not still fouls. Bednarek has been a scapegoat for so long now with the national team, and only in the last two years or even less has this not been as prevalent. In my opinion he is a perfectly adequate centre back, but I do understand a lot of the frustration he causes in people as he can often be at the scene of the crime, as it were. 

What feels more irritating is that in that moment, when Cash had to go off and Nowak’s tank was emptying, it felt like Urban was hoping that Poland could settle for the draw rather than still chase a victory. If he wanted to go more attacking why not swap Frankowski to right back, where he has played well at club level this season, and bring on Tymoteusz Puchacz? Granted Puchacz wasn’t brilliant defensively against Sweden but after Urban’s on words that he was better going forward, why not take that risk?

Then in the midfield, Nowak had a more conservative replacement in Bartosz Slisz or the more attacking change with Kacper Urbański, which did actually happen but only in the 89th minute. Again, this is a risk not taken earlier when it would more probably have paid off.

It feels like the last two games have seen Urban become so risk-averse, you look at the choice to start Karol Świderski over Marcel Reguła, Michał Skóraś or Oskar Pietuszewski. Let’s be frank, Świderski should not be in this squad, but in many ways he has also become a scapegoat for these games and the lack of satisfactory showings. You look at the alternatives and Reguła is one of the Ekstraklasa’s best players most probably, Skóraś hasn’t started his Lens career in flying form but is reliable, and Pietuszewski was brought over from Portugal at the last minute to only play something like 20 minutes over three games. It’s unconscionable that Urban thought the starting right midfielder should’ve been Świderski when you look at the options he had.

It’s become so boring to keep going over the same ground every 18 months, of whether or not the Selekcjoner should keep their job. Honestly, Urban probably hasn’t shown enough in these four games to lead Poland into what might be an increasingly difficult-looking Euro 2028 qualifying campaign. Even if he wins the two games in November, against Romanian and Swedish sides that will likely have nothing to play for, it almost certainly won’t be enough to aid Poland’s push to play in the forthcoming tournament. 

This is before you get into the fact that unless some drastic improvements occur during the next international break, Urban will not have Poland playing in a manner that is consistent over the 90 minutes or efficient enough. The amount of shots being taken that don’t result in goals is verging on mind-boggling at this point. 

You also have a bleak set of pundits on all of the regular programmes discussing Polish football suggesting that maybe this is just Poland’s level now, an average or slightly below average European team. I disagree strongly with this, as if you look at the amount of younger players Poland have that could be integrated with some of the more established names, there is a certain level of potential there. 

It’s a shame in some ways that Urban has moved away from the back three just when Kacper Potulski looks to have become a really fantastic option. I would not be against returning to that back three if it meant having Potulski instead of shoehorning in Frankowski at left back because Urban doesn’t trust Puchacz or even bother calling up Michał Gurgul.

There are strong reminders of this time two years ago, when things started to go wrong for Michał Probierz, and if there is any sense of similarity this means Urban may well hang on into next year, but there isn’t the credit in the bank (qualifying for a major tournament) for Urban in the same way there was for Probierz.

Frankly, it does feel a little bit like if Jerzy Brzęczek hadn’t abandoned his principles earlier on Monday evening and through team selection and tactics decide to cede the U-21 game to Italy (which thankfully hasn’t resulted in any serious consequences), Brzęczek would now be readying himself for his second attempt at being Selekcjoner. 

It might be that Brzęczek will be in charge come the springtime, but it feels that the real issue is Cezary Kulesza and the PZPN administration he is president of. I’ve been saying this for quite a few years now that Kulesza is presiding over a ridiculous backwards slide, seemingly making very spontaneous decisions and not very good ones either. 

All of this has led to a bit of a fun debate on social media as to how to re-examine Paulo Sousa’s time as Selekcjoner, and the fact that he got out very quickly after Kulesza’s election. As those who’ve read this website before might know, I was a fan of the vision Sousa had for his Poland team, and for my money is the best coach that the national team has had in the post-Nawałka era. 

So, Poland are in a worse position than they were three weeks ago, there is very little appetite for the future and even if there was another change of Selekcjoner, the real issue is the person appointing them. 

As someone who has been covering Polish football for four years now, it’s incredible how much of a backwards slide there has been. You think of Czesław Michniewicz and timid football with a scandal to boot, Fernando Santos and those wasted months, Probierz’s time ending with worsening results, a cloud of egotism and a different kind of scandal, and now Urban who is more negative about his own players and situation than I can recall him ever being at club level. 

It all feels like it’s ending one way, and the sooner Kulesza vacates the PZPN maybe Polish football can be on the right track again. It feels like a big ask considering he only got re-elected (unopposed!) last year, but there needs to be serious change at the top before we start thinking about changing Selekcjoner again. 

I say all this, but Urban does look almost past the point of no return. By all means give him these November games, as Kulesza has committed to, but if nothing changes you have to find someone else to lead Poland into Euro qualifying. 

The popular choice, Maciej Skorża, has refused to work under Kulesza’s PZPN on multiple occasions if rumours are to be believed, and I don’t see that changing. Brzęczek has done great work with the U-21s for nine games before blowing the tenth, but what’s to say he won’t make the same mistakes he did when he was last Selekcjoner? Beyond that, many of the Polish names being floated don’t seem at the required level for the scale of the task at hand and with the urgency of immediately getting points on the board against tough opponents. 

So maybe if we look at foreign names, who could be tempted? One or two fans have mentioned Kasper Hjulmand, which feels relatively realistic, but I can’t see Kulesza making such a sensible decision. Rather if he were to hire a foreign name, it’d be like it was with Santos, someone past their best and having left their last international job under a bit of a cloud with a bad result at a World Cup. Ronald Koeman, perhaps. 

Another point that several pundits and journalists have made is that, quite understandably, things have gone downhill since the tragic passing of Jacek Magiera and the effect that must undoubtedly have had on the players and staff. Aside from the obvious loss on a human level, his professional acumen has sorely been missed over the last few months. 

It is not totally inconceivable that Urban still turns this around, even at this late stage and with most people from fans, pundits and even Kulesza himself implying that he’s in a very weak position. The lack of faith remaining in his work however, and numerous illogical decisions over the last three weeks, might have unfortunately already sown the seeds of a future dismissal. 

For more, follow @ekstraklasaexp on X (Twitter) and @ekstraklasaexports on Instagram to know when new posts go live.