Leo Beenhakker: The Roundup.

I think the time has come to judge Leo Beenhakker’s career as the coach of the Polish national team. I wrote some time earlier that I would refrain from doing that until the qualifiers are over. Well, they’re over for us now and Leo is gone. What will we remember him for?

Over the last three years fans and journalists alike were divided into pro-Leo and anti-Leo groups. I thought both of them lost perspective at some point, the former after the Euro qualifiers, the latter during the tournament and in the recent campaign. I admit that I believed in Leo’s magic touch after we qualified for Euros, I thought that he was able to get from the players more that they were capable of. I thought that he was this miracle maker who’s able to take the players to the higher stage, wake them up and make them believe in their own talent. I realized that it wasn’t true after the tournament. Our performance didn’t differ much from the ones in 2002 and 2006, there was no progress to be seen. Still, I wanted Leo to stay as I was afraid that a change of coach would result in the same catastrophe as introducing Zibi Boniek in 2002. What’s more, there was no coach on the horizon that would guarantee better performances or a better approach to the team. Unfortunately, something has gone wrong after Euro 2008. Maybe the players stopped believing Leo when he said they’re as good as any other team in Europe. They became aware that these were just mind games and they’re unable to compete on the highest level on everyday basis. Leo himself started to become involved in all sorts of conflicts with the members of the Polish FA. He lost his energy on it instead of taking care of the players. He stopped attending the Ekstraklasa games, ceased to travel around Europe to check the players’ form. He stopped looking for new players, stopped improving the squad (not that there were many left out Polish players capable of performing on the international stage). Leo also shouldn’t have accepted the offer from Feyenoord to become a sort of unofficial advisor there. That brought a lot of criticism on him and made an impression that he’s stopped caring about the team. Even though he claimed in every interview that he’s obsessed about going to the World Cup, one could see that his mind was elsewhere. I think that in the end everyone involved grew tired of themselves, of the tension surrounding the Bialo Czerwoni. Leo’s idea for the team was past its expiry date, a date set for 2008.

Now, I don’t think we should make that mistake and blame Leo for everything that’s bad in Polish football. Yes, he deserved the sack as he blew the qualifiers, but he didn’t have incredible talent to choose from, did he? We have only one outfield player in Europe’s top three leagues (Blazej Augustyn), the best players from the Ekstraklasa get transferred to Greece (Roger) and Russia (Murawski) with no guarantee of playing time whatsoever. The home league’s biggest star for the last two seasons, Pawel Brozek, is not “attractive” enough for Fulham to lay their money on the table. Wisla Krakow, who won all six league games this season, weren’t good enough to eliminate Levadia Tallin in the Champions League qualifiers (by the way, check how the teams that eliminated our clubs did further in the competition). It’s not the fault of a sole foreign coach, is it? It wasn’t Leo’s role to improve youth training or the level of the Ekstraklasa. It’s far beyond his competence, it’s a task for the FA and the clubs alike. The idea that Leo’s failure means a failure of all the foreign coaches is just plain stupid (I’m glad that the volleyball officials didn’t agree). Now the FA won’t look for the best coach possible, but for the best POLISH coach possible. It’s limiting your own options, it’s not trying hard enough. It’s just not learning anything from the lost qualifiers and sweeping all the problems under the carpet. When I hear Antoni Piechniczek saying that the youth training in Poland is on a good level and that there are talents everywhere I know that nothing will improve under the current FA management. Grzegorz Lato showed the level of professionalism he’s capable of when he fired Leo in front of the pitch reporter. He visited the team’s dressing room earlier, but didn’t have the balls to fire Leo in front of the players, face to face. He hasn’t got a simplest idea how to heal the Polish football, but we’ll have to deal with him at least until Euro 2012 (any sort of governmental intervention will be met by UEFA with an “we can take the Euros away” ultimatum). Welcome to hard times.

Leo, thanks for:

- the game against Portugal, it’s the Bialo Czerwoni’s best performance I’ve ever seen
- qualifying for the Euros for the first time in our history
- installing a belief in the fans and players that we can compete with anyone (2006 and 2007 were good times, weren’t they?)
- respect for the fans, he’s always had nothing but praise for us

Leo’s mistakes:

- completely lost it after Euro 2008, gave the impression that he stopped caring about the team
- bad personal choices before Euro 2008, where are players like Pazdan, Zahorski or Kokoszka now?
- unnecessary conflicts with Artur Wichniarek (should be given more chances than 45 minutes in a friendly) and Ireneusz Jelen (we just can’t afford to resign from a player of his ability)
- picking players like Lobodzinski, Tralka or Jakub Wilk even though they’re not even rising above the Ekstraklasa level
- rude opinions about Polish mentality, even if some of them were partly true, as a guest he shouldn’t have made them

Top 5, Leo’s best games:

The famous 2-1 against Portugal

The win against the Czech Republic, the closest we got to the Portugal performance

2-0 against Belgium that gave us the Euro qualification

1-0 against Belgium, a crucial win for me as we were able to build on the Portugal performance. It’s what we failed to do in the game against Slovakia in the recent qualifiers.

2-2 against Portugal away, a goal out of nowhere from Krzynowek, the luckiest we got in the qualifiers

Top 5, Leo’s worst games (I won’t torture you with highlights):

0-3 against Slovenia to end his career in Poland

2-3 against Northern Ireland in a game that was hard to call football

1-3 against Finland to start the Euro qualifiers, last games for Dudek and Frankowski

1-1 against Austria at Euros where we were lucky not to lose 0-4 before the break

0-2 against Croatia at Euros in a completely gutless performance

That’s it, the end of ane era. Time to move on.