Beenhakker Gives His Reasons For Leaving Wichniarek And Brozek At Home.

May 15th, 2008 | By: tomasz | 4 Comments »

I managed to read a very interesting interview with our coach Leo Beenhakker in Gazeta Wyborcza today in which he justifies his choice of strikers for the Euros. All those speaking Polish have a look here; I’ll give a small summary of Leo’s views for all the others.

At last we know why Leo refrained from taking Artur Wichniarek and Pawel Brozek to the Euros. It’s the ability to keep the ball, simple as that. Leo and his staff judged every attacker on the basis of how often he loses the ball. The Polish NT staff compiled data in which they checked how many balls are lost by the strikers for every ten chances. It turned out that Smolarek, Matusiak, Zahorski or Saganowski were far more effective than Wichniarek or Brozek. Leo’s obsession is keeping the ball by the team; his favourite saying is ‘the more we have the ball the less our opponents have it’. Leo is aware of the fact that we won’t have as many as ten chances in the games against Germany or Croatia so every won ball can prove crucial whereas every lost possession can prove deadly. Fair enough for Don Leo, as long as he didn’t bring Rasiak along.

What’s surprising in the interview is the critique that some players were exposed to. Leo is horrified by the form shown by Matusiak, Lobodzinski or Wawrzyniak in the Polish Cup final. He’s not even sure if he can bring them back on the international level in the three weeks he’ll spend with them. I agree with Leo, there wasn’t much football to be seen in the cup final; neither of the teams could organize the play and exchange more than 4-5 short passes. The only player that received some praise for the game from Leo was Roger, who was the most creative force on the field. Leo is aware that it may be hard to bring some players back to their best, that’s why he organized secret (not so secret anymore) fitness tests for Bialo Czerwoni to check players’ individual needs. Good to see the manager controling all the details of preparations.

In other news, two far fetched transfer speculations concerning our players. Energie Cottbus is supposedly interested in Lukasz Gargula, whereas Torino looks for a player of Jakub Wawrzyniak’s characteristics. We’ll see if those effects of journalists’ imagination will materialize in the neat future.

Tags: Beenhakker, Brozek, Gargula, Group A, Lobodzinski, Matusiak, Poland, Roger, Saganowski, Smolarek, Wawrzyniak, Wichniarek, Zahorski

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Comments

By deyna199 | May 16th, 2008 at 1:02 am

i respect leo’s decision with respect to strikers and the type we need. its an interesting piece and shows other characteristics coaches look for. i also think he partially did it because polish journalists are annoying as fuck and everything some pole scores a few goals they ask him why this particular player is not on the list. maybe they will finally give him a break and respect his choices? i doubt it, polish journos are some of the most annoying.

anywho, what i find interesting about the interview is that beenhakker is so adamant about the possession characteristics of his strikers. yet guys like dudka routinely piss away possession by long balling it, doing hollywood passes to no where that end up to nothing (excluding his pass to lobo against the czechs, which was like 1/20 for him over 25 yards, and i think that one in particular was shorter). im not saying that dudka is not good enough to play, but beenhakker can obviously have a chat with him and simply say keep your passes short and you will be more effective. i think that is the bigger key to possession personally, although i respect his team selection.

i think a lot of our lack of possession is mental because we can do brief spells of good possession. im not saying we can compete on individual skill with the best of the best but stringing passes on the ground to each other instead of just trying to get down field the quickest possible way is something we are capable of. sometimes it looks like some players on a different page, like usually the same players will go back to the long ball play while others don’t. like we aren’t in sync. anyways, hopefully beenhakker can get the best out of them.

By tomasz | May 16th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

I agree with regard to Polish journalists. They all have their favourites, this year it was mainly Brozek, Sikora and Zienczuk. I’d ask the journos if they remember any good game by those players in the nt or any spectacular performance in the European club competition. I can’t see European powerhouses fighting for Brozek’s signature or even modest clubs attracted by Sikora’s free agent status (there were only some rumours about Cottbus, give me a break). The fact is that there is no player of a proven consistent international level left out of the squad. The only time when I agreed with the press was when Janas omitted Franek in 2006. I also felt sorry for Iwan in 2002 but it was more a personal thing on my account.
The strikers are to keep the ball and wait for other players, that’s understandable. I agree that it shouldn’t be Dudka who takes risks, he should just pass the ball to the nearest available teamate. Ideally it should be our wingers or amc who construct the play. To be honest, I’d expect an opening pass from Lewy rather than Dudka. However, Dudka has his pros, such as physicality, tackling ability or heading. And he can always surprise us just as with the pass to Lobo. I don’t know, I just think he’ll still progress. I also see some lack of consequence in Leo’s words. If we are so eager to keep the ball at all costs why did he left out Radomski? For me, he’s our best dmc in terms of possession play. Unfortunately, he offers nothing in the offensive play. I think that Leo is aware that we don’t have good enough players to control the game throughout 90 or even 70 minutes, especially in the Euros. He just wants to control the play as much as possible. There were some good spells of possession football on our side in the quals (e.g. both Serbia games) but we’re still most threatening when counter attacking.
And one more thing; as much as I like Leo’s reasonable explanation I can observe one flaw. Why do we need 3 strikers (Matusiak, Zahor, Sagan) of similar characteristics? Does Leo expect the games to look the same throughout 90 minutes? I’d still bring one fox in the box, just like Wichniarek.

Posted from Poland

By legia_piotr | May 16th, 2008 at 7:48 pm

tomasz, I agree with you on all fronts except this line: “The fact is that there is no player of a proven consistent international level left out of the squad.”

IREK JELEN.

Posted from Canada

By tomasz | May 17th, 2008 at 4:10 am

Irek is a must in the Polish squad provided he’s fully fit. Unfortunately, this season was very poor for him (especially when you compare it with his 1st season in France) mainly because of his back problems. Now his manager says that the last surgery proved successful and injury problems are no more. He was never really considered for this year’s Euros, even by the press. Leo also doesn’t seem much convinced my Jelen’s style of play either. It’s up to Irek now to convince him otherwise and return to his past form.

Posted from Poland

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