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Leo Beenhakker: Stay Or Go Away?

June 19th, 2008 | By: tomasz | 7 Comments »

It should be simple: Leo Beenhakker didn’t prepare the team well enough to compete in Euro 2008. Consequently, just as Jerzy Engel in 2002 and Pawel Janas in 2006, he should get the sack from Polish FA officials. But is it really that simple?

First things first: Leo Beenhakker failed to get the best out of our players during Euro 2008. Everybody who watched the team during qualifiers knows that we’re capable of much more. We may not have a lot of quality players, but neither does Austria and they at least showed a real drive to impress and gave the fans something to cheer on during the games. Poles didn’t really. We played well for 30 minutes against Germany and in the second half against Austria. It’s not enough, even for the least demanding fans. We’re listed among Greece as the poorest and most boring team of the tournament. Leo claimed that all he needed was 2-3 weeks with the team. In fact, the team performed better when he had only 5-6 days with the players. So why should we keep our coach after such a disappointing tournament?

-Poland won one of the most difficult qualifying groups, Leo proved that he can make the team play better than abilities enable them to
-Leo introduced a lot of less known players from Polish league who performed well in the qualifiers and friendlies: Matusiak, Golanski, Bronowicki, Gargula, Wasilewski, Dudka, Murawski, Zahorski, Kokoszka, Majewski, Pazdan and, most importantly, Kuba Blaszczykowski.
-we finally were able to gain points against superior opponents: Portugal and Serbia.
-Leo is an authority for the players. They respect him and are eager to work with him.
-there’s no Polish coach that is ready to take charge of the national team. Sure, the likes of Skorza, Urban or Michniewicz are talented, but they’re far from ready. Let’s see first how they do in European club competition. And don’t even mention older coaches.
-we’re unable to attract the highest class coaches from abroad. Lippi? Rijkaard? Don’t even joke.
-we simply don’t have time before next qualifiers; Leo knows the team and already introduced players that are to play leading roles in the upcoming games. We can’t afford to start from scratch.
-Leo’s contracted till 2010.

It’s official now: Leo Beenhakker lost his saviour qualities. Which doesn’t necessary make him a bad coach; it just takes away this miracle-maker image from him. Leo should be prepared to face some critique; hopefully, ambitious as he is, it’ll make him work harder. He’s to meet next month with Michal Listkiewicz, our FA president, and discuss the upcoming qualifiers. I’d like to learn what he thinks about the future of Polish national team and what philosophy he’s going to apply next (more young players? different style of play? should we concentrate solely on 2012?). For now, I want Leo to stay.

What do you think?

Does Leo Beenhakker deserve to remain Polish national team coach?
( polls)

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Comments

By Raz | June 19th, 2008 at 7:47 pm

with WC qualifying around the corner i’d like to see him stay. i personally like him and think he’s a great coach that can lead this team or any team for that matter. however, what really bothers me is that i’m not sure if the players think that. based on their body language i felt like they have no desire to play for him. maybe he trains them too hard and they rather be at the beach…. i’m still obviously bitter about their underachieving attitude (exception: boruc, guirrero). but if the case is that they dont want to play for him, then theres not much you can do. no coach will succeed if his players give up on him. and thats something i felt like i saw a lot of in this tourney from the current squad. cue the first 30 minutes of the austria game or the entire croatia game. i dont know what goes on in the bullshit that is the PZPN organization and the politics involved with it but i’m always left feeling like everything is important except for actually winning. i just really didn’t see a drive to win the games in this tourney (exception: germany game) and to me that points to troubles in the locker room and lack of team unity.

Posted from United States

By adas | June 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Who cares if this group of players don’t like him. He needs to start with a new squad anyways. The young guys will try to get along with him no matter what just to get a spot on the team. I’m more worried he may be tired of Poland, or expect similar results in the future. In which case he might decide not to waste his time. But I hope he does stay. He deserves to.

By Witold | June 19th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

I think that he is one of the factor of our bad performance, but I think also that to have a good team we need to have some stability in coaching, just like Ferguson in MANU or Wenger in Arsenal. So for me is never more a magician but he is still a good coach who will learn from this Euro to make Polish Team a best team. Guys we don’t have to be so shame, think about France, Czech and Italy, so much talent and what they did? Maybe we will have a final Germany against Croatia…

Posted from Canada

By tomasz | June 20th, 2008 at 5:08 am

I think the players want him to stay, at least that was what they said after the last game. They certainly didn’t blame the coach. Moreover, Boruc said that they felt better prepared than 2 years ago and played better football. I think that the trust is still there, I just hope the character will resurface again.

Posted from Poland

By Rysio | June 20th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

At the end of the Croatia game did you notice Leo shaking hands of players on the bench that didnt even play? It looked like to me he way saying ”goodbye” but I really dont know. I hope he does stay because I think we can improve on this, and I agree with whats been said about the need to bring in new, younger players to the squad. The question is, do we have enough good young players to play at this level?

Posted from United Kingdom

By drewsky | June 23rd, 2008 at 6:58 am

Leo is a Godsend

Posted from United States

By 2002, 2006, 2008... *sigh* | June 27th, 2008 at 6:42 am

leo is good, let him stay, just this time we need to get our scouting game on for 2010.. im sure theres plenty young talent outside of poland working its way up the ranks in top youth clubs.. get on them so we have someone to play alongside roger! we dont need another podolski over-looking .. not too mention our slow motion defence.. ughhh… *sigh* … imagine a roger podolski smolarek hook up.. *sigh*