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Poland-Croatia 0:1. A Poor Game By A Poor Team.

June 17th, 2008 | By: tomasz | 16 Comments »

Let’s face it: this tournament wasn’t our league. The last game against Croatia finally proved that our players are just too poor to compete at this level. Regardless of any tactical or squad changes, what we genuinely lack are abilities. Without those abilities we looked like a lower division team competing with professionals.

Poland-Croatia 0:1 (Klasnic 52′)
Poland: Artur Boruc – Marcin Wasilewski, Michal Zewlakow, Dariusz Dudka, Jakub Wawrzyniak – Wojciech Lobodzinski (55. Euzebiusz Smolarek), Mariusz Lewandowski (46. Adam Kokoszka), Roger Guerreiro, Rafal Murawski, Jacek Krzynowek – Marek Saganowski (69. Tomasz Zahorski)

First look at our starting lineup caused a shock among fans. Lack of Ebi and Jacek Bak in the first eleven seemed unreal. It was also a more offensive lineup, since Rafal Murawski is not a typical defensive midfielder. Everybody expected to see an attacking approach from the first minute. And throughout the first 15 minutes we played quite well. Some well delivered balls, a couple of corners and free kicks here and there. Now I think that the Croats wanted to check if we were able to pose any threat. After 15 minutes they knew that we couldn’t and started playing their own game. Even though Croatia’s biggest interest was to avoid injuries, they managed to take full control of the game. They just realised that they can easily outplay an opponent of such mediocre quality without even breaking sweat. Their one-two plays were really simple; unfortunately they were too complicated for our players to comprehend. Once again Artur Boruc had to do his magic between posts. Once again Jacek Krzynowek couldn’t provide a single ball in the penalty box. Once again Dariusz Dudka proved to be the biggest threat for his own goalie when playing as a central defender. Wojciech Lobodzinski had even problems with first touch, let alone any dribbles. Mariusz Lewandowski played his worst game at Euros as he was constantly losing the ball in the centre of the field. Boruc was the single factor that prevented Croatia from scoring.

Adam Kokoszka replaced Lewandowski after the break. Everybody hoped that Leo could once again work his magic in the dressing room and influence players to perform better. It wasn’t to be. In the 52nd Ivan Klasnic scored with a well placed shot after Wasyl lost a shoulder-to-shoulder duel with him and Lobo forgot to return to defense. At this point, I stopped supporting for the first time in these Euro Championships. I just didn’t feel that there was any possibility of winning, I didn’t feel that the players are giving their best. I didn’t feel this drive for success that was ever-present during the qualifiers. The game was quite boring from this point. Yes, we had our chances; Ebi had a good shot, Zahorski was one on one with the keeper. Unfortunately, the match felt like a friendly when these chances came. No wonder, Croats had absolutely no interest in speeding up the game and risking injuries. What a painful way to end a tournament. For the third time in a row we’re one of the weakest teams, this time maybe even the weakest one, taking part. Nobody, apart from Polish fans, will remember the Polish national team from this tournament. A huge disappointment this one.

Players’ ratings:
Artur Boruc 8: Once again a world class performance, the only Polish player that rose up to the occasion.
Marcin Wasilewski 3: out of his depth, provided a nice path for Pranjic to run into.
Dariusz Dudka 4: this is why the coaches doesn’t like to play him in the centre defence. You can count on him to make a stupid mistake anytime in the game. Better in the second half.
Michal Zewlakow 5: the best Polish defender in these Euros. Concentrated, no huge mistakes.
Jakub Wawrzyniak 5: better than anyone expected, but it wasn’t that hard as expectations were never high for Wawrzyn. Didn’t lose his head when on the ball.
Mariusz Lewandowski 2: an enormous number of stupid ball losses. Croats played with him like with a baby.
Rafal Murawski 5: tried very hard to be involved in the play, always available for a pass. No huge ups or downs in the game.
Wojciech Lobodzinski 2: definitely out of his league. Not even a single dribble, needed too much time on the ball.
Jacek Krzynowek 3: thanks for all you’ve done for us throughout the years Krzyniu, but by such performances you’re ruining your legend.
Roger Guerreiro 5: his worst game at Euros. Couldn’t find himself a place on the field. Had to dribble a lot as there was nowhere he could pass the ball.
Marek Saganowski 4: won a couple of headers in the first minutes, but proved unable to win and keep the ball when Croats took initiative.
Adam Kokoszka 5: proved his potential. A couple of nice tackles. What I like most about him is his diagonal passes to midfielders; he doesn’t waste time passing to other defenders. Positioning needs to be worked on, though.
Ebi Smolarek 5: finally some moves that were expected of him: a nice shot and a great pass to Zahorski. More involved in the play. Should have played from the first minute.
Tomasz Zahorski 5: wasn’t scared of Croatian defenders, always looked for an opportunity to dribble or pass into the box. Should have scored, though.

Conclusions:
As written above, we simply lacked quality to compete at this level. Could we have played better? Of course we could, which wouldn’t necessarily mean better results. At the same time, the fact that we have a single outfield player in Europe’s top three leagues is not a coincidence. I’ll write a seperate concluding note on our Euro involvement, for now I still feel like my dreams have been shattered. A harsh reality check. Tell me, how do you feel about our Euro performance? Did you expect this?

Tags: Beenhakker, boruc, Croatia, Dudka, Group A, Kokoszka, Krzynowek, Lewandowski, Lobodzinski, Murawski, Poland, Roger, Saganowski, Smolarek, Wasilewski, Wawrzyniak, Zahorski, Zewlakow

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Comments

By pete | June 17th, 2008 at 7:58 am

” A harsh reality check. Tell me, how do you feel about our Euro performance? Did you expect this?”

I felt the biggest reality check when we lost that 5-0 friendly to the USA. It wasn’t the loss, it was the scale of it which showed that our team wasn’t capable of playing on this level.

Then Blaszczykowski was left out – some say he quit with an “injury” because he knew he wouldn’t be starting. Then there were curious choices about the selection – OK, mistakes. Big mistakes. Like not putting a youngin like Janczyk into the final cut, and having him on the reserve. Leo talks a good game about developing future talent, why not take a young guy and help develop him? Didn’t he watch the u-20 in Canada?

Then Zurawski was hurt. Then Piszczak. It seems to me these so-called injuries actually weren’t, they were players abandoning ship because of a lack of confidence in their coach.

But something has to be said about our national character. The team only played well after they got a go-ahead goal against Austria. That was the only time I enjoyed the team. Something needs to be changed in our Polish mindset – the “mental training” you were talking about. Because I believe our team could have pulled a draw against Germany and Croatia, and hammered Austria. And they didn’t.

Posted from Canada

By gregorio | June 17th, 2008 at 8:15 am

i got my blow on the head in the game against germany. the bubble burst and i knew we’re not really in the competition for the 1/4’s. then i limited my hopes to some nice piece of football, that brings a smile on your face, a win gainst austria and maybe some draw in the last game. none of these were to happen.
i know we can play better even against germany, i know what i saw in the qualifiers. we didn’t even reach the level of play from the 2-2 game with serbia.
it’s clear to me that mentally, we were dwarfs, not able to have the balls even in the less challenging moments. and this was the case in the previous tournaments.

lots of analyses and discussions ahead of us, but i just hope that the living-dead of the polish football won’t win the chance to blow up the opportunity for our NT football, which is leo’s work.

Posted from Poland

By PRS | June 17th, 2008 at 8:28 am

Thanks Tomasz for the postings. It has been deservedly hard to find in depth English coverage on Poland’s involvement in the Euros, but your blog made it more fun to follow the team.

I agree on your assessment of the team’s lack of fundamental abilities, but it wasn’t just skill that was lacking. In the 60th minute of the Germany game, our player stepped on Podolski, which easily could have been a suspension (if it were Rooney, it almost certainly would be). Podolski had to step off the field and his next ten minutes were his most inspired of his game culminating in the thunderous volley that made the score 2:0 in the 70th, and made us take a step back from the 1:0 defeat in WC 2006.

In the Austria game, Bak could not control his emotions and raised his hand to strike the Austrian defender resulting in a redo of the direct kick that led to the penalty. Questionable or not, our other defender was naive enough to put his hands on the Austrian giving the opportunity for Webb to make a call for the penalty in the 93rd minute. Even that should have been OK had Poland actually been able to focus on winning and finish a second goal during the game, which they did not have the determination to do.

Against Croatia, lack of a no-lose mindset again cost the game with the clumsy collision in the box which could have easily been a penalty resulting in a goal from a well officiated play-on call. Despite Austria’s finish, during the game, there was a lot of shirt tugging and pushing by our defenders. Zahorski’s one-on-one with the keeper was poor. He shot it with his right foot even though he had a clear path to pass the goalie and roll it in with his left. If Poland is basing its hopes on young strikers who are not dual footed, it will remain impossible to compete at a higher level. If the response to antagonism or adversity is an emotional foul, it can be expected that if Poland is about to get a result in a big match, a red card or penalty from an undisciplined foul will negate an important, historical result.

In each of these games, other than Boruc who as goalkeeper cannot win the game, there was simply no determined winner’s response. Rather, the response by our field players was negative. This Euro was a chance to begin building on a more winning attitude from the team. Leo instilled that in qualifying after the loss to Finland and tie with Serbia, but the lack of big-game experience, lack of winning mentality from the field players was consistently clear.

The one bright spot was Boruc, who can hopefully leverage his performance into professional advancements. He seems at home in Celtic and I am not sure whether the move to the Premiership as some suggested is the best course. Sometimes, it’s better to be the big fish is less deep waters, and his performance at the Euros reinforce that he should be a respected contributor to that team.

I do worry about 2010 WC qualification. Czech, Slovakia, Northern Ireland and Slovenia will have their say in the final standings, and only the top team automatically advances with the #2 having to play a 2 game play-off vs. another #2 from a different group. Having said that, there is no Italy or England, no Spain or Croatia, no Portugal or Germany, not even a Russia or Turkey to contend with. Czech bowed out in the first round of WC 2006 and Euro 2008. The other teams did not qualify. It’s a final chance for Poland to get back on a winning track. If Poland does not qualify, the team will be in disarray, Leo will be out, and Poland will be left to host (and perhaps compete in a very long time) in a major tournament for the last time in Euro 2012. The team has shown it does not perform well under pressure. I guess the next two years will be the final test. If they respond like they did in these Euros, it will be disappointing to watch.

Posted from United States

By Rysio | June 17th, 2008 at 9:01 am

One of the big problems ive noticed is Set Pieces, and just general sloppyness. Mind you, you watch clips of the home game against Portugal in the qualifiers and they seem like a well oiled machine.

Posted from United Kingdom

By j | June 17th, 2008 at 9:05 am

I hate to be the dissenting vote but with respect I think you’re being too hard on yourself because the talent and passion is there in Poland. The issue is the right mix and applying it a style for international Football but also keeping a keen eye towards the future. I know this is a very difficult task but I am hopeful to see younger players such as Grzegorz Krychowiak, Krzysztof Król, the very talented Jarosław Fojut and most notably Dawid Janczyk in the lineup soon. As it relates to David Janczyk, he is a natural predator and I hope he will see action in your upcoming WC qualifying matches. It won’t be too long before CSKA Moskva is fighting off clubs to keep him but a player like him who consistently finds the back of the net can’t be left out. While I know he wasn’t selected to the final squad, pre-tournament I had him listed as one of the players to watch because he has a rare ability to change matches.

Posted from Germany

By kizak | June 17th, 2008 at 10:10 am

Thanks for all the blogging during the 3 matches. Absolutely correct we are not that good of a team, indications came from the US match. Two things disturbed me the most; 1) Leo’s defensive mindset thinking we can play an offsides trap against the Germans. It is clear the Germans can be beaten by a good offsides trap (see Germany-Croatia match), but to have expected the Polish defense to run the trap effectively when they really never did in the qualification round was a SIGNIFICANT miscalculation by our manager putting the team in a harmful situation, 2) the lack of urgency by the entire Polish squad during all 3 games. Is it poor concentration, patience, inability on the pitch or a fearful respect of the other team I don’t know but not withstanding about 20 minutes in the 2nd half of the Austria match the team never brought their game to the opposition.

Other minor conclusions from hindsight observations: Krzynowek should not have been shooting at Lehmann and giving the ball away as much as he did no matter what the scouting report on Lehman is. Ebi must now play behind the initial flow of the attack, where he won’t be heavily guarded by the defenders and pick up loose balls for goals. Zahorski maybe an answer to a lone striker created opportunities for himself and other which with future experience can become goals, should have one-timed that strike on goal with his left foot, probably didn’t feel confident enough. The defense has to be revamped completely Wasilweski is awful, can’t cover a single person. Bak is loosing it. Leo has a lot of work, as Zbyszek B. said you must constantly be rebuilding the house. qualifications were one thing we played fantasticaly, but the team was out-classed in one of the most difficult tournaments in the world, time to learn, move on and become better. Leo if he is such a genius now must have a better understanding of his team.

Dziekuje Tomek za blog!

Posted from United States

By Raz | June 17th, 2008 at 10:11 am

I agree with pretty much everything i read in these comments. i think my biggest disappointment was the teams mental health. i didn’t expect them to be all that great technically but i do believe a teams attitude carries more weight than their ability. time and time again you see teams play above their level in sports. they’re in a must win by 2 goals situation against croatia and to me, they played like they rather already be home. like the whole tournament was so cruel to them and every call went against them. i didn’t see the heart, energy, passion, or love for the game. you look at the players eyes and they just look like they’re not quite there. you watch the turkey czech game, down 2-0 and they have fire in their eyes. they want to win. they want to keep running and attacking. they believe. they played way above their level. i only saw a bit of that fire in polands team during the beginning of the germany game and in the 2nd half of the austria game. the croatia game just left me with a bitter taste of disgust. the majority of the team are nothing more than a bunch of perennial underachieving primadonnas. they should start paying more attention to their teammate boruc who is an example of what an athlete should be. the guy is a winner, a competitor, and a model of what our team’s attitude should be in every game. maybe i’m being hard on them, but i look at boruc’s body language compared to other guys on the team, and you can’t even compare.

this team was by far the most disappointing for me compared to the last two world cups. i’m really hoping the young generation of players can step up and have a winning attitude and confidence in themselves. as for janczyk, he wasn’t on the team due to an injury right? either way, he’s another guy like boruc, and luckily he’s in a position that actually scores goals. i expect a lot from him in the future. i also saw the spark in zahorski, he needs to improve his game a lot but mentally, he is there.

on a lighter note, tomasz, thanks for all your hard work on this blog. i really enjoyed reading your entries and am grateful i stumbled upon it. will you continue to write for this blog during the WC qualifying campaign?

Posted from United States

By pete | June 17th, 2008 at 10:17 am

I have to agree with “j”. Those future talents can be developed, they were all part of what I consider to be a successful U-20 team in Canada.

I still take heart; hopefully our football future can be better. At that U-20 I keep talking about, our team made into the elimination stage, something our senior team can’t seem to do. They also won against Brazil playing with 10 men for most of the match. And they pulled themselves together after a 6-1 loss (!) at the hands of the USA, and fought South Korea to a draw and qualified.

I’m hoping a few of our junior players get picked up by some good Western squads and put into the regular lineup, which will help them develop. We certainly can’t count on the Orange Ekstraklasa to develop serious players, it’s only fodder for hooligans.

Posted from Canada

By tomasz | June 17th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

@Pete
I also sensed history repeating itself after this friendly loss to USA, which I expressed in the note about this game. However, I believed Beenhakker when he said that all he needs is more time with the players. As for Kuba, I think it was a good decision. If he wasn’t prepared there was no point risking another injury. He’s a young lad, we cannot play with his health. Janczyk would’ve gone in my opinion if it wasn’t for his injury. He hasn’t played more than 5 games this year if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t like to believe that Zuraw faked the injury, I’m almost sure Piszczek didn’t. I agree with you about our mentality. As for the U-20 squad from Canada-guys from the Polish league like Marciniak or Janoszka are not really developing. Marek had an ok season, but he must change the club for a better. Malecki will probably be loaned out from Wisla once again. Danch, who I think has the biggest potential, wasn’t a regular for Gornik, but Leo has already spotted him.
@Gregorio
I had similar expectations to yours. I wrote before the tournament and in the team profile on this site that I don’t necessarily expect the boys to advance, as we don’t have players on Croatian or German level. But I expected our boys to be competitors this time. I wanted other teams really to struggle to get anything from us. At least something that Switzerland did. Leo must stay, no doubt about that.
@PRS
Once again we touch upon mental preparation, because I think stupid mistakes that you listed are consequences of our players mentality. Maybe it’s the fact that our players don’t have much chance to play in important matches during the season. If you’re waiting whole year just for Euros then you might burn up. If you’re competing on a high level every weekend Euro games are as normal to you as a game against Aston Villa or Everton. It’s a problem that we perform only when we score first. leo tried to change that and teach lads some positional play. He was even critisized for it as “counter attack is our natural environment”. As for next qualifiers, the best thing about our group is that there are a lot of, more or less, evenly matched teams. Everybody will lose points and I hope that we’ll be in competition till the last round. The other point worth discussing is whether we should introduce more young players having 2012 in mind or just think about qualifying to the World Cup.
@Rysiu
We don’t have a free kick specialist, we knew that before the tournament. What was our last direct free kick goal in a competetive game? Szymkowiak against Latvia?
@j
We’re disappointed because we expected our team to play a bit above their abilities. Look at Austria, they don’t have players even as good as ours, still they managed to outrun Croatia in the second half and us in the first half. At least they showed huge ambition and great physical preparation. Talking about future is always interesting, but this Euro was about here and now. As for Janczyk, I think he developed last year (although I only saw 2-3 games with him). It’s now crucial that he plays regularly for CSKA, but first they must sell either Jo or Wagner Love. I’m not so convinced about Fojut, I like Król but I haven’t seen him in a year. As far as I know, Krychowiak got a professional contract which is a good sign. At the same time, if there was huge Polish 15-16 year old talent out there we would’ve already heard about him.
@kizak
I heard that Leo didn’t really wanted to play offside traps, maybe it was just badly performed pressing. I agree that we weren’t able to dominate the play in none of the matches. Was it character or just lack of abilities? Probably a mixture of both. It’s easy now to write about Krzynek’s shots after the game, but I think we all hoped for a little present from Lehmann. I agree about Ebi and I wrote it after the first game. Zahorski is a future lone striker option but he played on wings in his last 3-4 nt games. I’d like to see him playing whole game as a st. Bak’s nt career is over. On the right wing I still count on Golanski. Kowalczyk from Dinamo Moscow is also an interesting player. Maybe Leo is not a genius as we thought, but he’s still a good coach.
@Raz
As you wrote, it all comes down to mentality. That’s why this note is so bitter; I also didn’t see the fire in our players’ eyes. The game was a sort of punishment for them. No body language, no shouting, just sad faces of players that don’t really believe. Boruc raises his game for ocassions like this, others seem to lower it. I feel a little less disappointed than after previous tournaments, maybe because we were so close to winning againsr Austria.
@everyone
This blog will surely continue after Euros. I can’t help this but Polish nt is the love of my life in football.

Posted from Poland

By gregorio | June 17th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

@tomek

yo, big up yourself

Posted from Poland

By marcin | June 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

before the tournament i would have bet 100 dollars that we would be in the quarterfinals, i expected much more after watching the qualifiers…beenhakker has got to change this team up, especially the old players…and bring in the new guys…keep in mind that the polish youth team made the quarterfinals of their worldcup

Posted from Canada

By Smoga | June 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Well done, Tomasz, thanks for the great work on this blog – and keep on bloggin’. And I agree with most of the comments above…it’s just very hard to look ahead with hope, knowing how hopeful we were and how things have turned out the last three tournaments…

By Kizak | June 17th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Yes Tomasz excellent if you can keep this blog alive, the best english-language Polish Soccer blog I have seen of the very few that even exist, if the url changes please let us know of the new one….thanks for your efforts. Can’t wait to continue these discussions and analysis for South Africa 2010 quals, I want to go to SA2010 and I want my squad to be there!

By j | June 17th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

Respectfully I think the one mistake was not integrating a number of younger players even if merely for the experience at a larger stage. Unfortunately by not doing so, you’re basically assuring a completely inexperienced squad in the future. In my opinion David Janczyk is a rare breed of striker today, doesn’t merely rely upon speed and has an uncanny ability to score. He needs to play a role in upcoming friendlies and I think Jarosław Fojut (in particular), Grzegorz Krychowiak and Krzysztof Król, as well as other juniors who come up through the domestic leagues need to be supported with similar roles. I might be the only person looking forward to a friendly against San Marino but I’m hopeful that they are very visible in that match.

Posted from Germany

By polish girl | June 18th, 2008 at 6:54 am

we, polish people, love our couch leo beenhakker and we thank him for all
http://www.thxleo.pl

Posted from Poland

By nick | June 24th, 2008 at 6:59 am

we were shit but it was the kind of game we still would’ve won during the qualifiers

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