Poland-Lithuania 1:1. A Night To Forget…

February 8th, 2009 | by: tomasz | Comments(19)

…but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to read this note. Don’t expect any new players in our national team’s starting eleven in the near future. Players who done well against Serbia in the last friendly now had their weaknesses exposed. I know it’s the beginning of the year and some players are not in the match mode, but lack of skills was sometimes too evident too ignore. Guys who play against Wales on Wednesday need to be much better.

Poland-Lithuania 1-1 (Brozek 11′- Klimavicius 26′)
Poland: Radosław Cierzniak (46’ Sebastian Przyrowski) – Piotr Celeban, Tomasz Jodlowiec, Piotr Polczak, Marcin Komorowski (46’ Maciej Malkowski) – Szymon Pawlowski (46’ Wojciech Lobodzinski), Antoni Lukasiewicz, Lukasz Tralka (46’ Lukasz Gargula), Rafal Boguski (46’ Roger), Jakub Wilk – Pawel Brozek (67’ Tomasz Zahorski)

It’s hard to have any positive conclusions after this game. From the new players that Leo spotted in the Polish Ekstraklasa none seem ready to become a significant figure in the national team. Of course, Pawel Brozek, Rafal Boguski or Lukasz Gargula are good players, but we knew this before the game; they are already members of the first team. First of all, our defence was extremely shaky. I had a really good opinion about Piotr Polczak, but this game managed to ruin it almost completely. Polczak was simply unreliable in defence; Lithuanian striker Velicka did everything he wanted with him. The Cracovia defender lost possession numerous times and his bad positioning disorganised the whole defensive line. Our right back, Piotr Celeban, also had enormous problems with Lithuanian wingers. His style of play was far too chaotic for my liking. Lukasz Tralka was a player much praised by Leo after the last friendly against Serbia, but he failed to confirm this positive opinion this time. I know what Leo is looking for in this player; he wants someone who is similar to Rafal Murawski, good in defense and offense at the same time. As much as Tralka played well defensively (he won possession on a couple of occasions), he wasn’t able to organize our offensive play. The problem is, Tralka is not used to playing under pressure, once Lithuanian defenders were close to him his passes started to be inaccurate and his decisions wrong. As a result, the main idea of our attacks was to play a long ball towards Boguski or Brozek. The only player that was able to speed up our game was the Ekstraklasa top goalscorer; he tried one touch plays with Boguski often or passed the ball to the wingers and looked for position. Unfortunately, he scarcely received the ball back from the wingers. Pawlowski wasn’t able to win a single one-on-one duel and slowed the game down. Wilk was even less involved in the game. Our goal was scored as a result of a good understanding between Boguski and Brozek and a predator-like finish from the latter. The goal we conceded was of a silly goals category. Cierzniak had a “free run” in the penalty box and one of our tallest players, Lukasiewicz, managed to get outjumped by Klimavicius.

The second half wasn’t much better from the first, even though there were more experienced players on the field on our side. Gargula was much better than Tralka, at least he had some shots on goal and successfully switched the play to the wings on a number of occassions. Roger couldn’t find his place on the field, he’s a shadow of a player he was in the summer. Jakub Wilk was yet another player tested as a solution to our problems at the left back position and yet again a one that failed to convince. Lithuanians got tired, but we were unable to exploit it; it was easily observable that Polish league players played their last competetive game more than a month and a half ago. Our best chance came from Tomasz Zahorski who failed to convert Lobo’s nice cross. Other than that, the game was dull and required a lot of persistence from the viewers. The Wednesday’s game against Wales must be more entertaining.

Player ratings (1-10):

Radoslaw Cierzniak 3: our top five goalies can sleep calmly at night; Cierzniak wasn’t reliable, he didn’t communicate well with the defense and is partly to blame for the goal.
Piotr Celeban 3: ambitious as he is, he simply lacks skills and experience to perform on an international level.
Piotr Polczak 3: a game that ruined his good reputation for a while. Unreliable, easily moved by attackers, bad positioning.
Tomasz Jodlowiec 5: seemed most trustworthy from our defenders, but he too made too many inaccurate passes.
Marcin Komorowski 4: rather absent; did well in defence, but was useless in offence. Had one nice shot though.
Antoni Lukasiewicz 3: I just can’t see an international potential in him. Yes, he’s a powerful, physical player, but when with a ball at his feet he doesn’t know what to do. Slowes the game down extremely. Is partly to blame for the goal.
Lukasz Tralka 4: had good opening 10-15 minutes, but started making mistakes once Lithuanians put some pressure on us. It’s too early to write him off, but it’s not a coincidence he only plays for Lechia Gdansk.
Szymon Pawlowski 3: the skills are there; first touch, dribble, speed. He’s just unable to sell those skills on the pitch.
Jakub Wilk 4: wasn’t threatening as a left winger, played better as a left back. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that he’s a long term solution there.
Rafal Boguski 5: one of the players that was able to drive our game forward. Nice assist. I want to see him at least for half an hour against Wales.
Pawel Brozek 7: the best player on the field. Created something interesting everytime he had the ball at his feet. A cool finish in the 11th minute.
Sebastian Przyrowski 5: more confident than Cierzniak, may fight Zaluska for the 3rd choice keeper spot.
Maciej Malkowski 4: didn’t create or ruin anything. I can’t see how can he strenghten the national team; he’s neither a dribbler, a crosser of the ball or sprinter. He’s average at everything.
Wojciech Lobodzinski 4: anonymous performance, similar to what he shows for Wisla. One nice cross for Zahorski in the dying minutes of the game.
Roger Guerreiro 4: where is the player we all fell in love with during Euros? Still capable of single good plays, but disappears for the vast parts of the game.
Lukasz Gargula 5: brought some life to our offensive play, tried to speed up the game. Some good set pieces. Should get his chance against Wales.
Tomasz Zahorski 4: nothing new from Zahorski, he hasn’t made any progress since early 2008. Could’ve and should’ve won the game for us in the last minutes.

Conclusions:

-the winter break is disastrous for our players’ form.
- it’s still to early to bring in Jodlowiec and, especially, Polczak to the first team. All eyes on Adam Kokoszka on Wednesday.
- players I just can’t imagine to strengthen the national team in the future: Cierzniak, Celeban, Lukasiewicz and Malkowski. I’ll support Germany in the next World Cup if any of those players become a significant member of the first team.
- Lukasz Tralka and Marcin Komorowski were a bit “overpraised” after the Serbia game.
- Jan Urban has to do something to bring Roger back to form. Maybe it’s the cold weather?
- the game only confirmed that Pawel Brozek, Rafal Boguski and Lukasz Gargula belong to the A team.
- who should be Kuba Blaszczykowski’s backup, Lobo or Pawlowski? None deserves that spot. Irek Jelen can play on the right wing, can’t he?
- Pawlowski needs to play in the Ekstraklasa again, he’s failed to make any progress lately.
- the search for the left back continues, Jakub Wilk is an option, but not a long term solution. Jakub Wawrzyniak has a chance to make the position his on Wednesday.
-positive thing about our new kits: there was the crest on them. Negative things: I prefer strawberry red to cherry red, black collars.

Nobody will remember this game after a couple of days. It won’t be remembered as a game were player X made his claim for a place in the first team. It won’t be remembered for spectacular goals. If it was to prove anything, it only proved that some players are a long way from the international level.

Pawel Brozek’s goal:

gol – gol

You can watch extended highlights here.

Other news: Other Poles were on the scoresheet this weekend.

Artur Wichniarek

Ireneusz Jelen

Ebi Smolarek played for half an hour, both Adam Kokoszka and Bartosz Salamon started their games in Serie B.