Is There A Place For Irek Jeleń? Poland-Norway Preview.

February 9th, 2011 | by: tomasz | Comments(5)

After a long wait we’ll at last see the Smuda top boys in action once again. The challenge may be harder that it seems as Norway is currently ranked 11th in the Fifa World rankings. It must be because of great teamwork because, just as us, they don’t have world superstars on their team. Still, players like John Carew, John Arne Riise or Morten Gamst Pedersen should be well known to all people seriously interested in football. This game will be a perfect opportunity to test ourselves against a typical European team; a sort of team that we’ll most likely have to defeat to advance from the group stages of Euro 2012. It’s high time we have two successful games in a row.

Smuda limits the testing to the minimum, this half a year will be the last opportunity to win yourself a place in the Euro squad. That’s why our team today will be a mixture of Euro dead certs (Błaszczykowski, Lewandowski, Obraniak) and players who still have to fight to convince Smuda of their usefulness (Głowacki, Dudka, Szczęsny). Even though, we should be able to observe a distinct style of play (fast, short passes, spells of pressing followed by holding back) against Norway, a one that we saw against Ivory Coast and in the fragments of the game against the USA. If we continue to play in a more expected matter and be able to repeat the good performances it will mean that Smuda is leading the team in the good direction. The worst that could happen would be a repeat of the Cameroon disaster and coming back to the drawing board. For me, however, the most important aspect of this game will be to see whether Robert Lewandowski and Ireneusz Jeleń can cooperate with each other in Franz’s strategy (4-3-3 or 4-5-1 if you like). Smuda’s tactical plan means that one of them has to play on the wing, which definitely isn’t their designated position (left wing since Kuba’s position on the right is unquestionable). As Adrian Mierzejewski became a victim of a row between Smuda and Józef Wojciechowski, we have one extra spot left in the attacking formation. As a result, this is a perfect opportunity to play Lewy and Irek together. I’m sceptical about this idea and in my opinion it may, at the same time, be the last occasion we see them together from the start. Still, it won’t hurt to examine it.

Our squad:

Goalkeepers: Wojciech Szczęsny should change his nickname to ‘the luckiest man alive’. First, Artur Boruc got expelled from the national team because of well known misbehaviour. Then, Szczęsny’s Arsenal teammate and rival, Łukasz Fabiański, got injured in a warm up before a Premiership game (guess whose shot caused this injury?). Finally, Przemysław Tytoń injured himself as well a week ago, enabling another Polish goalie, Mateusz Prus, to debut in the Dutch Eredivisie. As a result, Szczęsny went from being a fourth choice keeper to being a starter one at a speed of light. To be fair to Wojo, he did everything possible in order to receive this chance and he surely deserves it. He also remains quite modest when talking about his position in the national team; in a recent interview he said that he’s not as good as Boruc or Fabiański. That may be so, but there is every chance that he’ll surpass them in the next year and a half.

Defenders: Another game, another defense. Only one defensive player from the game against the Ivory Coast will start the one against Norway as well. This will be, of course, Łukasz Piszczek who doesn’t have any competition for his place at the right back position at the moment. On the other side of the field, Smuda will pick Dariusz Dudka, for the first time since his dreadful performance against Cameroon. In all honesty, our coach didn’t have much choice (Boenisch remains injured, Sadlok wasn’t let to join the team) and his decision can’t be much criticized here. Moreover, Dudka has been playing regularly in France lately and he’s got a number of Champions League games under his belt this season as well. In this game he’ll fight for a Boenisch’s backup role and, considering the Werder’s full back serious fitness problems, this may turn out to be a starting role for a long time. In the middle, after a serious of unsuccessful call ups (injury problems), we’ll finally see Arkadiusz Głowacki. Smuda claims that the defender made huge progress after leaving Wisła for Trabzonspor, but it’s hard to believe him considering the fact that Głowa spent more time in a doctor’s office than on the pitch during his time in Turkey. I rate Głowacki as a similar defender to Grzegorz Wojtkowiak and Tomasz Jodłowiec skill wise. His advantage is experience, but his drawbacks include poor health and a tendency not to manage well under pressure. Kamil Glik and Grzegorz Krychowiak compete for the final spot in the defensive line. It’s likely that Smuda will opt for Glik, a player he knows a lot better than the Reims defender\midfielder. I really hope that regular play in Serie A, even if for the worst team, helped Glik eliminate his mistakes (poor positioning, mistimed tackles). This game and the next ones against Lithuania and Greece may be the last were central defenders are casted. Smuda claims that we may expect to see Damien Perquis and Manuel Arboleda wearing white and red in May or June.

Midfielders: The absence of Adrian Mierzejewski means that the midfield line will have to be formed differently than against the Ivory Coast. Though it considers only one position; Rafał Murawski, Adam Matuszczyk, Ludovic Obraniak and Jakub Błaszczykowski don’t have to fear for their place in the starting lineup. Smuda has got three options for Mierzej’s replacement: Ireneusz Jeleń, Roger Guerreiro and Kamil Grosicki. The Auxerre striker would be an obvious choice, if it wasn’t for the fact that he hasn’t yet played a good game after he returned from an injury. Nevertheless, I think Smuda, will go with Irek, even if only to see whether he can play him together with Robert Lewandowski. On the other hand, it’s rumoured that Roger made a very positive impression on Franz during the training sessions. If the Brazilian born Pole was to start then Ludo Obraniak would have to be moved to the left wing, a position he occupied and played well on against the Ivory Coast. My bet is that Jeleń will start, but will be substituted by Roger at some point in the second half. I don’t think Smuda trusts Grosicki enough to include him in the starting lineup against a serious rival.

Strikers: Robert Lewandowski starts almost every game under Smuda (he started on the bench only against Ukraine) and it doesn’t seem that the game against Norway will be any different. Lewy hasn’t started this year well at Dortmund, but he still is in better shape than Jeleń or any other Polish striker for that matter. At the moment, his absence in the starting lineup is out of the question.

As much as I worry about the defense, I remain hopeful that we’ll see a further progress from the Biało Czerwoni. We got better with each of the last four games that we played in the strongest lineup (Ukraine, Ausralia, USA, Ivory Coast), though we were still far from perfect. This only means that we still have room for improvement, a room that has to be realised against Norway.

Poland-Norway, Estadio Algarve, Portugal, 20:30 CET
Poland: Szczęsny – Dudka, Glik (Krychowiak), Głowacki, Piszczek – Murawski, Matuszczyk, Obraniak, Błaszczykowski, Jeleń (Roger) – Lewandowski