2011’s First Call Ups. Roger, Głowacki, Szczęsny and Dudka Return, Krychowiak Gets A Chance.

January 25th, 2011 | by: tomasz | Comments(29)

At last, the dead season is over and we can once again discuss Smuda’s newest ideas regarding the national team. Franz didn’t forget about the core of the team in the today’s call ups (apart from Fabiański, who is given a break due to injury), but he decided to include some surprises as well, namely Roger Guerreiro, Arkadiusz Głowacki, Dariusz Dudka and the young Grzegorz Krychowiak from Stade Reims. Smuda picked as many as thirty three players, which means that he’s still leaving the door open for potential Euro candidates and will prolong the competition for the place in the tournament squad for the next half a year at least. Call ups after the click.

Smuda divided the list of call ups into Ekstraklasa players who’ll face Moldova on the sixth of February and the ‘first team’ composed mainly of ‘foreign’ players who will face Norway on the ninth of February.

Squad for Moldova:

Goalkeepers: Grzegorz Sandomierski (Jagiellonia Białystok), Sebastian Małkowski (Lechia Gdańsk).

Defenders: Hubert Wołąkiewicz (Lech Poznań), Grzegorz Wojtkowiak (Lech Poznań), Marcin Kikut (Lech Poznań), Maciej Sadlok (Polonia Warsaw), Tomasz Jodłowiec (Polonia Warsaw), Jakub Rzeźniczak (Legia Warsaw)

Midfielders: Ariel Borysiuk (Legia Warsaw), Maciej Rybus (Legia Warsaw), Tomasz Bandrowski (Lech Poznań), Rafał Murawski (Lech Poznań), Janusz Gol (GKS Bełchatów), Cezary Wilk (Wisła Kraków), Adrian Mierzejewski (Polonia Warsaw)

Strikers: Michał Kucharczyk (Legia Warsaw), Artur Sobiech (Polonia Warsaw), Szymon Pawłowski (Zagłębie Lubin), Dawid Plizga (Zagłębie Lubin)

Some interesting picks here and some surprising omissions. The rookies in this group are Sebastian Małkowski and Michał Kucharczyk. The former is a fine Ekstraklasa goalie, the latter is a talented striker who broke through at Legia this season. It will be interesting to watch Kucharczyk in international competition, though personally I think that it’s still too early for him to represent Poland on senior level. Marcin Kikut and Dawid Plizga got called up regardless of their extremely poor performances against Bosnia, which only shows that input in these type of games is not the basis for Franz to judge his players. I really hope that this time Kikut won’t have to stand stranded in the middle and will be played as a right back. The player that will compete with him for playing time is Jakub Rzeźniczak who returns to Smuda’s team after a yearly break. I don’t have high expectations regarding him; in my opinion the Legia defender stopped progressing at least two years ago. The game against Moldova will also mean a return of Tomasz Bandrowski to the national team. The Lech’s defensive midfielder lost the first part of the season due to injury, his surgery was postponed at least two times, but wasn’t carried out as the player felt better after rehabilitation. Now he’s training with Lech and will be tested once again by Smuda. The encounter against Moldova will be extremely important for Artur Sobiech. This may be the first proper chance in the national team for the Polonia striker, and may be his last one at the same time. With Irek Jeleń coming back to full fitness Sobiech won’t get much playing time in Poland’s upcoming friendlies. Rafał Murawski, Adrian Mierzejewski and Tomasz Jodłowiec should act as the leaders of the team.

Any players I’m missing here? Ebi Smolarek will really have to experience an impressive round in order to return to the team. For now, Smuda is giving him time to regain his form on Polonia’s training camp. The same applies to both Andrzej Niedzielan and Dawid Nowak, who both can get their chance in the national team only if they perform sensationally well in the Ekstraklasa. Other than that, I’d much prefer to see Tomasz Kupisz or Jacek Kiełb instead of Dawid Plizga and Maciej Rybus, but it seems that Franz really fell in love with the latter two. For me, those are wasted spots on the teamsheet, but at least Rybus won’t stay for the game against Norway.

Squad for Norway:

Goalkeepers: Wojciech Szczęsny (Arsenal), Przemysław Tytoń (Roda JC Kerkrade)

Defenders: Łukasz Piszczek (Borussia Dortmund), Kamil Glik (AS Bari), Dariusz Dudka (AJ Auxerre), Grzegorz Krychowiak (Stade de Reims), Tomasz Jodłowiec (Polonia Warsaw), Maciej Sadlok (Polonia Warsaw), Arkadiusz Głowacki (Trabzonspor)

Midfielders: Rafał Murawski (Lech Poznań), Ludovic Obraniak (LOSC Lille), Adam Matuszczyk (1.FC Köln), Roger (AÉK Athens), Jakub Błaszczykowski (Borussia Dortmund), Adrian Mierzejewski (Polonia Warsaw)

Strikers: Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund), Ireneusz Jeleń (AJ Auxerre), Kamil Grosicki (Sivasspor)

First of all, Wojciech Szczęsny is getting a reward for his recent performances in Arsenal’s goal. I don’t have much against Przemysław Tytoń, but I consider Wojo a much bigger talent and I hope that he proves it during the training sessions and convinces Smuda about who deserves to be the backup keeper for Poland. Arkadiusz Głowacki makes an unsurprising return to the national team as Smuda wanted to test him as early as in the summer last year. Now Głowa regained fitness and a place in the starting lineup of Trabzonspor. It will be interesting to see whether he can provide a safer defensive option than the likes of Glik or Wojtkowiak. I’m slightly surprised by the return of Dudka, though to be fair he’s played very regularly for Auxerre recently. I only wonder what’s Smuda’s idea for Dudka: left back, centre back or defensive midfielder? Either way, I’d prefer to see him only as a backup, last resort option. Franz also finally decided to have a closer look at Grzegorz Krychowiak, a player that’s earning very positive reviews in French second division. He can play both at centre back and defensive midfielder, positions that are quite heavily covered in this squad. I sense that Krychowiak’s current adventure with the national team may be similar to that of Bartosz Salamon, which means that he’s likely to spend the Norway game on the bench. I’d like to be proven wrong here. Quite unexpectedly, Smuda decided to bring back our Brazilian maestro, Roger Guerreiro, to the national team. Franz was never a huge fan of Roger, but he couldn’t turn a blind eye to the fact that Guerreroski managed to win back a place in AEK’s match squad. Roger’s got flair that no other Polish player have and I’m happy that Smuda decided to have a closer look at him. If he’s physically prepared for the challenge he can still become an important piece in Smuda’s puzzle. Finally, I hope Franz decides to play Lewandowski and Jeleń together so that we can see whether it’s even possible or if we should stick only to one of them. There may be concerns regarding Irek’s fitness, but I understand that he’s ready if our coach decided to hand him the call up.

Anyone missing? Radek Majewski paid the biggest price for Roger’s return as there is no place in the team for one more offensive midfielder. There was probably a plan to test Tomasz Cywka, but his team has been playing really horrible lately and our player stopped grabbing the headlines as well. It’s possible that Smuda opted for Roger at the very last moment. Paweł Brożek will have to wait till he’s back in shape to start playing in Turkey and therefore he’ll have to miss the upcoming training camp. His future call ups depend on his goal ratio for Trabzonspor. Smuda decided to postpone Sławomir Peszko’s return to the national team, but he won’t be able to do it much longer if Peszkin continues to earn positive reviews in the Bundesliga. In the current state of Polish football we can’t let go of anyone playing regularly in one of Europe’s top leagues.

Your thoughts?