Comments on: Poland-Czech Republic Preview. Waiting For A Miracle.

By: Hieronim

Hieronim — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:34:56 +0000

Why is everyone always slamming on Wasilewski??? He made some important tackles and is a physical presence. He is good in the air and isn’t scared of anyone. Yes he is slow and yes somewhat lacking in agility. But he connects well with Kuba,and against the Czechs he had a few vital tackles and blocked down a Svertos shot in the waning moments. Most importantly, at the moment there is no one better than him to replace him with.

By: Wejher

Wejher — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:57:58 +0000

I disagree totally with all comments slating Smolarek, the guy at the moment is lacking self confidence, he done everything right on saturday just his composure in front of goal let him down. 2 years ago everyone was kissing his ass and he was scoring from all positions and angles, you dont just lose that ability overnight as soon as he gets a goal or two under his belt he’ll get that back. What actually amazes me is that hardly anyone has commented on once again how bad Wasilewski is. Where did the goal come from? left wing. where was Wasilewski? by the D out of position. Look at how many times during the game Blaszczykowski got back before him, or Dudka came across to cover him. even on one occasion Boruc was on the side of his box closing down the attacker whilst that chimp was in dream land, he has the turning circle of a boat and the brain of a potatoe and his fuckin haircut??? wtf? everyone keeps going on about our lack of l/b but if you look at this game the czechs targeted our r/b. I hold my hands up and admit when i’m wrong Krzynowek done well in the l/b position and i think his role in the squad should be to provide cover i was worried he would be too attack minded but he was very composed and disaplined. i also disagree with someones earlier comments that he is too selfish and cant shoot. He has the ability and in his time was probably our best midfielder so he needed to try to do things on his own, if he did’nt play like this then we would of came away from Portugal 2 years ago with no points instead of the 1 point, his only fault now is his age but as proved on saturday he is a valued squad member, just like Beckham is to England.

By: dmac

dmac — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:11:30 +0000

Witold: Maybe you are right in that I have forgotten all that Smolarek has done for us. But what has he really done? I don’t remember him doing anything during the Euros. Where was he there? Where was he against the Germany game, or the Austria game or even the Croatia game? And watching him play those games and this game… there is just something I don’t like about his playing ability. And I am sure that Smolarek is a nice guy. He seems like he would be a good guy to hang around with. But that should not excuse him from his play. He just seems to float around the field. It looks like he lacks determination and isn’t pushing himself 100%. When you see him miss a shot or get a penalty, it looks like he just laughs it off. Now, I don’t necessarily have any problem with that… but please show some kind of passion and fire that you want to score and you want your team to win. And that is something I don’t see out of Smolarek. And, as I mentioned earlier, I also truly don’t believe that he has the skill set needed to be on out National Team. Who would I replace him with? I am not sure, maybe Tomasz could answer that question better than I could. But what I would do is replace Smolarek with a young, raw, talented player. Maybe someone like Janczyk. I like what the Germans have done in this respect. For exmple, with Podolski and Klose. They threw these players into the spotlight early to get the necessary exposure needed to get them acclimated with this climate of play. It would be nice if we did the same for our young players, to expose them early to this level of play so they get a feel for the game.

By: Alek

Alek — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:43:41 +0000

It seemed to me that Leo played a total football tactic, our midfield and forwards played everywhere. M. Lewandowski played as a CB allot as Wawrzyniak played up. Brozek played as a AM for allot of the time and Smolarek tried to played up but not very well. Roger played to the right instead of left like I’d think, Murawski also played as an AM. Smolarek wasn’t that bad I thought its just that the NT played way more up the right side so you forgot about the left when you watched it. Wasilewski was for me the weakest player, his crosses were off, he was really slow to get back to defending leaving Dudka to play for him. But looking at who is in the squad he doesn’t have much competition. Wojtokowiak gives away too many penalties, Pazdan’s form along with Gornik blows. Jodlowiec should get a try as either RB or move Zewlakow out, either way no Wasilewski.

By: MarcinO

MarcinO — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:33:25 +0000

Smolarek’s biggest problem appears to be his attitude. It is hard to say for someone looking at this from the outside but there were clear signs during the game that something is not right with the mental aspect of his game. That may be what is affecting his form.

Its nice to see Blaszczykowski become a more vocal leader. Watching the post game interviews, he seemed to say all the right things. Its good to know that he has a head on his shoulders. I hope that they can build on this result and go into the next game with confidence.

I like that Beenhakker has not forgotten about Robert Lewandowski. At that point in the game it was the perfect opportunity for him to get some experience without much pressure to produce a goal.

It was also nice to see Brozek get on the score sheet and silence some of his critics. His spot in the starting eleven should be his to lose.

By: M. Zurawski

M. Zurawski — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:45:47 +0000

Finally, some form. I think the first half hour is precisely the way we should play consistently, match in, match out. I don’t think we played as well in the second half, though i understand the impetus was more heavily on defense and ball possession. I also don’t think the Czechs played with the same steely determination that they showed against England a few weeks ago, BUT, they played well, and we simply outplayed them, so credit to us. I was happy to see Krzynowek as a sub. I’ve said it before, and i maintain, i don’t think he has the drive to play a full 90 anymore, and as DMAC noted, he didn’t have the chance to waste too many shots. I have faith in Ebi. Throughout qualification for the Euro and the actual tourney nearly the whole weight of expectation rested on his shoulders. That’s a crippling burden, and i think he cracked. Now Blaszczykowski and R. Lewandowski and perhaps Brozek and Roger and even Murawski can bear a bit of that burden and nurture him back into form. We shouldn’t dismiss him. He has flair and talent on a good day. I think we let our concentration slip on the header, would have been nice to have a clean sheet. But BEAUTIFUL, overall. Lets see if we can carry it over to Slovakia who, i think, will be equally difficult. Skertel is out right?

By: Witold

Witold — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:01:24 +0000

Dmac: I’m desagree with you Smoralarek is not that bad, and who will be better than him in this position? You easly forget all that he had made before, and the real potential that he has?

By: Mariusz

Mariusz — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:01:36 +0000

It’s true. We’ve played great game and the further into the game the better it looked. I don’t agree with some saying Czechs didn’t play well. Simply not true. They were good we were better. As simple as that. We had Kuba and Boruc – they made this possible – and Czechs had…. well, they had 11 good players. Players not artists. Of course our whole team played great. It wouldn’t have been possible to win with Czechs otherwise but those two made the difference. The thing that Kuba did with the first goal – that was the masterpiece and it was worthy every great world class player. No!! I take it back! probably they wouldn’t have the drive to push it through. The value of this game and win is that – we played good team that played well and we’ve won. It’s unrealistic to expect this in every game vs for example San Marino but now we now without a doubt – OUR TEAM CAN PLAY WITH EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THE WORLD ON EQUAL TERMS!!!!

By: dmac

dmac — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:59:05 +0000

Blaszczykowski played great, I really liked watching him play. Roger, Brozek, and Boruc also played good. It really did seem like we pretty much controlled the whole game, and that before we scored our first goal we had plenty of chances and were really playing hard against the Czechs, and it was nice to see us keep up our tempo and skill even after scoring our goals. I don’t remember a game that we played when we looked like we had actual skill, energy, and creativity like that. So good job to the team.

On a side note, I am glad that Krzynowek played back because that meant that he had less chances to shoot. I really don’t like that guy and his selfish play because I feel that he always takes an awful shot and tries to do too much by himself when he knows he doesn’t have the skills to do so. Also, Smolarek should be thrown off the team too. Where is this guys passion? Drive? Motivation? To me, it looked like he was taking everything as a joke, laughing when he missed a shot or opportunity. He just floated around the game without any real impact. If the guy has skill, he certainly isn’t showing it. And skill wouldn’t be enough in the first place, he needs a little bit of determination too, which I’ve never seen him have. So please, Beenhakker, replace Smolarek with a young player who at least has some potential.

And finally, we need to work on our corners. Poles are naturally tall, and I think that we have a pretty tall team, so we should be taking advantage of it on the corners. I don’t know the number of corners that we had, but it was a lot, so we really need to sharpen that part of our game because if we could capitalize on even a small percentage of corners it would have a great impact for our game.

By: gregorio

gregorio — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:23:29 +0000

Biało-czerwone
to barwy niezwyciężone!

great! great! for uor guys and leo. after really hard time
they gave – as i hear – a really spectacular performance once
again. who would have thought! not me…