Who is Jan Urban most likely to call-up for Poland’s upcoming fixtures?
Tomorrow morning, Selekcjoner Jan Urban will name his squad for the upcoming Nations League fixtures, with Poland playing four games in ten days.
There is already plenty of rumour, debate and educated guesswork going on around what choices Urban will face. There are, of course, outstanding and obvious choices he will make, but there may be left-field decisions here and there. We are also now bordering on certain that these are the matches in which Urban may experiment with a back four, so I’m working on that principle here.
Essentially, what this article will be is a bit of speculation about what tomorrow’s squad will look like. I’ll probably get a few things wrong, but in any case it gives us an excuse to discuss other topics also.
Getting into it with the goalkeeping department, and it’s concerningly less positive now than for a long time, at least as far as I can remember. Łukasz Skorupski has seemingly been dropped by Bologna, Kamil Grabara is on the bench (albeit at Juventus) and Bartłomiej Drągowski is hardly putting in strong performances with Widzew Łódź.
For me, the obvious number one for this international break should be Marcin Bułka. He has experience of playing for Poland and he is doing well and playing consistently, granted this is in Saudi Arabia, where the level of competition is perhaps not as high as elsewhere. My left-field candidates to be called-up would be Sławomir Abramowicz, probably the best Polish goalkeeper playing domestically, but as a third or fourth-choice I think some consideration should also be given to Kacper Tobiasz. He was often inconsistent at Legia Warszawa, but he’s been in good form since his move to Turkey and a clean sheet against an admittedly profligate Fenerbahce earlier this week should not be sniffed at.
It’s an interesting conundrum with Grabara. He hasn’t played a minute this season, yet he’s effectively been Poland’s first-choice keeper for half a year now. I personally think that there is every chance things stay that way, although I would personally prefer to see Bułka between the posts next Friday night.
In defence, we have the predicted change to a back four. This won’t really change a huge amount I don’t think, although the left back situation is obviously the most interesting thing to talk about here.
I’d personally like to start with discussing the right backs, though. Matty Cash has been nursing an injury the last few weeks but was fit enough to be named in Aston Villa’s squad for the League Cup last night, so I assume he will be in. I would also suggest that despite having had fluctuating levels of quality in a Poland shirt, his back-up in this role should be Przemysław Frankowski. He’s exclusively played right back for Rennes, who’ve had a very good start to the Ligue 1 season, and he has managed a goal and an assist too. Frankowski was missing from the squad last night for their Europa League tie, but let’s hope it isn’t a serious issue as I would like to see his return based on form.
Centrally, little has changed, and you would expect Jan Bednarek and Jakub Kiwior to be the two who will start these games. Behind them in the pecking order will likely be Kacper Potulski and probably someone more experienced like Tomasz Kędziora. Were it up to me I’d rather see Wojciech Mońka, but I don’t think Urban will want to gamble with two young centre backs, hopefully I’m wrong however and there is the space to take both.
Left back is of course the area of most intrigue, but it’s probably the area of least debate. Everybody is rightly of the consensus that the two candidates for this position are Michał Gurgul and Tymoteusz Puchacz. In my opinion, I don’t really mind which of these two is first-choice and which is on the bench, they are both solid options for the role and either will likely acquit themselves well.
Moving into midfield and the obvious choices are, well, obvious. Piotr Zieliński, Sebastian Szymański and probably Bartosz Slisz, as although I’m not as hot on the last of those picks Urban has relied on him a fair few times now. Kacper Kozłowski has a good chance of being called-up too, but I think most of us are excited by the idea that Bartosz Mazurek will be included tomorrow. He’s been fantastic for Salzburg to start the season, and the idea he won’t be called up isn’t really entering people’s minds. Wiktor Nowak is bordering on prolific with Slavia Prague too, and I think he probably should be in the squad and deservedly so.
There has been some debate about whether a return to the national team for Kacper Urbański is on the cards, and whilst I understand both sides of the argument I think maybe this particular international break will come too soon for him. If he’s still in this kind of form in November, I would absolutely advocate for his inclusion, but I think a little time away from the spotlight (relatively, at least) has been beneficial.
On the wings we know we won’t see Oskar Pietuszewski, who has been dealing with injury to start the season and Porto are reportedly being very conscious of his recovery. Hopefully it doesn’t derail him too much and we see him again in a couple of months’ time. Therefore we can expect to see Nicola Zalewski and Michał Skóraś, and beyond that I’m not sure if there are any glaring oversights.
Technically a winger but playing centrally for Poland these days is Jakub Kamiński, who was having a really rough start to his time with Benfica. Until last night, when he started for the club away to Milan in the Europa League and came away with a goal and an assist. He was probably the player of the match, that was certainly the way the British television coverage felt and you’d be hard pressed to find a better candidate. Many of us had been worrying for Kamiński and whether he would be called-up tomorrow in a manner similar to the past, when players have been out of favour at club level but integral to the Polish team, but I guess this isn’t something we have to be worried about as much after last night.
As back-up in that central, almost second-striker role I would have no hesitation to call-up Marcel Reguła, he throughly deserves it and as we’ll get onto later, the more young players start coming through now the better.
Up front we now know thanks to an interview with WP Sportowe Fakty released today that Robert Lewandowski is going to be available for selection in all four of these games, after speculation that he would only be available for a single one of Poland’s fixtures. For me, the others pick themselves: Karol Czubak, Mateusz Żukowski and Adrian Benedyczak. I’m a bit concerned Urban won’t see it this way and we will have at least one other “regular” choice in the shape of Karol Świderski or Adam Buksa, but there’s really no justification for picking them over the other names mentioned at this point in time.
There’s also the delicate matter of Coventry striker Ellis Simms, who appears very close to getting a Polish passport and becoming eligible for a call-up. I have to say I don’t like this for a few reasons. It’s not like a Nicola Zalewski or Maxi Oyedele situation, where they were born outside of Poland but came through the youth teams, and it’s not like Matty Cash’s situation where he was playing at a really high level and wanted to make himself eligible. Rather, it seems to me like a reserve striker at a newly promoted club has looked around, realised that Poland is his best chance of playing international football, and has decided he may as well declare. All this is before you get into the reported case that when Simms was approached a few years ago, he turned the opportunity down. Regardless of any of this, he also isn’t really at a noticeably higher level than the other strikers mentioned that I would like to see called-up tomorrow.
In that aforementioned interview, Lewandowski made a clear call that Poland now need to start bringing through the next generation with real impetus, not just calling up young players here and there but doing the hard work and politely replacing aging options with younger players who are starting to find regular game time and are in good form. I think everybody who read this interview wholeheartedly agrees, and maybe this means we will see a few fresh faces tomorrow when Urban announces his squad.
Meanwhile, this is what I think the 26-man squad will look like, bearing in mind I am obviously picking players I’ve mentioned but I don’t think it is too outlandish:
Goalkeepers
Marcin Bułka
Kamil Grabara
Łukasz Skorupski OR Sławomir Abramowicz
Defenders
Matty Cash
Przemysław Frankowski
Jan Bednarek
Jakub Kiwior
Kacper Potulski
Tomasz Kędziora
Wojciech Mońka
Michał Gurgul
Tymoteusz Puchacz
Midfielders
Piotr Zieliński
Sebastian Szymański
Bartosz Ślisz
Kacper Kozłowski
Bartosz Mazurek
Wiktor Nowak
Nicola Zalewski
Michał Skóraś
Jakub Kamiński
Marcel Reguła
Strikers
Robert Lewandowski
Karol Czubak
Mateusz Żukowski
Adrian Benedyczak
You would perhaps argue that it’s not the most defensively balanced midfield, but in fairness it has worked well in recent Poland games having just Zieliński and Szymański as the midfield two, with Kamiński more advanced. It’ll end up being a 4-4-2 out of possession in any case most likely, so the crowbarring in of more defensive midfielders isn’t really something worth doing, nor can I see Urban choosing to.
Whether or not a squad like this is actually chosen tomorrow we will see, but I think we should be bullish about the chances of seeing a lot of these younger faces included.
For more, follow @ekstraklasaexp on X (Twitter) and @ekstraklasaexports on Instagram to know when new posts go live.
Comments