Poland-Romania 0:1. Franz Smuda Has Got A Lot Of Work To Do.

November 16th, 2009 | by: tomasz | Comments(10)

“Things that start badly end well” said Franz Smuda after his team’s loss in the game against Romania. I hope that our new coach is some kind of prophet because otherwise it’s hard to remain optimistic after the Saturday’s game. Poland lost for the fourth time in a row, each time failing to score even a single goal.

Poland-Romania 0:1 (Niculae 59’)
Poland: Kuszczak- Kowalczyk, Kokoszka, Zewlakow, Piotr Brozek- Blaszczykowski (80’ Peszko), Dudka, Obraniak (80’ Roger), Kosowski (75’ Rybus)- R. Lewandowski (70’ Malecki), Jelen

Smuda decided to use the classic 4-4-2 formation. Moreover, he chose an offensive variant of the latter, with only one defensive midfielder in the centre. This showed the more adventurous approach that our new coach has in comparison to his predecessors. We were a bit faster when it came to exchanging passes near the opponents’ box, but it wasn’t a huge change in comparison to our latest performances. We also tried to employ the famous Smuda pressing, but the skillful Romanians usually didn’t have problems to surpass it. Dariusz Dudka was responsible for stopping the Romanian attacks whereas Ludovic Obraniak’s task was to organize our offensive game. Unfortunately, Dudka proved to be one of the weakest links in our team. We very often had problems with delivering the ball to the strikers or wingers since the Auxerre midfielder\defender was pressurized by Romanians each time he had the ball at his feet. Dudka had a lot of his passes intercepted and showed that he has enormous problems when he has to play the ball forward under pressure. Luckily, when the ball finally landed at Obraniak’s feet our game looked a lot better. Ludo played a lot of nice balls towards Kamil Kosowki and played diagonal passes towards Irek Jelen each time he had the opportunity to do so. This was Obraniak’s first game as a central midfielder for Poland and from what I’ve seen he can make the position his for the next couple of years. Kosowski was much more effective from the two wingers, he wasn’t afraid to dribble and accurately cross the ball into the penalty area. Kuba Blaszczykowski had another unimpressive game for the Bialo Czerwoni; he didn’t run at defenders and made wrong decisions in the box (dribbled when had to shoot). Both strikers tried to be very active, made themselves available for passes throughout the whole game, but failed in the decisive moments. They didn’t have any clear chances and the shots they took didn’t cause any problems for the Romanian keeper. Slawomir Peszko managed to waste our two best opportunities as he showed a complete lack of composure when being one on one with the keeper. The defense was a bit shaky, mainly due to Adam Kokoszka’s lack of precision and poor technical skills. On the other hand, it’s really hard to judge our players’ skills or the team’s tactical gameplan as the bad condition of the pitch didn’t enable the players to show their best. The ball jumped up and down on the sand (yes sand!) which made a fast, one-two play almost impossible. I don’t know why the FA, knowing about the pitch, didn’t choose a different venue for the game (Lubin for example), but Smuda said afterwards that next time he’s going to make the decision about where to play.

We’ll have to wait a bit longer for Smuda’s miracles (“Franek Smuda czyni cuda” as the fans chant). I think we need to give some more time to the players and the coach, it’s definitely too early to write the team off. Smuda has two years to find all the missing pieces and make the team competitive again. I very much like his decision about placing Obraniak in the middle or bringing back Kosowski, who was far more effective on the left wing than Krzynowek or Obraniak were in the last couple of months. I have a feeling that, maybe apart from Mariusz Lewandowski, Smuda really chooses the best Polish players. We just have to wait to see them playing as a team.

Player notes (0-10):

Tomasz Kuszczak 5: a very good game if it wasn’t for a horrible mistake in the dying minutes (let the ball go through under his belly). At least one great save, no chance to stop the goal.
Marcin Kowalczyk 5: an average game, played too defensively in the first half. Showed signs of promise when he started to go forward after we lost the goal.
Adam Kokoszka 3: extremely shaky, didn’t show enough progress to seriously consider him a starter at the moment. One deadly mistake that almost lead to conceding a goal, problems with first touch.
Michal Zewlakow 5: much better than Kokoszka. He remains our best central defender whether we like it or not. It’s only a question of how long will Smuda want to use his experience. 92nd cap with a view to break the all time record (Grzegorz Lato’s 100 caps).
Piort Brozek 5: I very much liked his performance in the first half when he took part in almost all offensive plays on the left wing. Good cooperation with Kosowski. Went missing in the second half though.
Jakub Blaszczykowski 4: lost the ability to go past the defenders, a one that made him such a threat a year ago. As a result, he’s not as confident as he used to be and makes wrong decisions.
Dariusz Dudka 3: too slow on the ball, a lot of turnovers; Romanians knew exactly which player to pressurize the most. Needs to improve, otherwise he’ll be relegated to the bench.
Ludovic Obraniak 6: quite a good game by Ludo, especially in the first half. Proved that his place is in the middle of the pitch where he can play a more important role in our tactics. Pushed our game forward with nice opening passes. Spent too much time on the ball in the second half and had poor shots throughout the game.
Kamil Kosowski 6: a surprisingly good return to the national team from Kosiarka. Threatening each time he had the ball on the wing in the first half. Should remain in the team for the time being, but his usefulness in 2012 is still a big question mark.
Ireneusz Jelen 5: ran a lot, was available for passes, had a couple of shots, but didn’t do what was expected of him, that is score a goal. Smuda wants him to be the main scorer of the team, to do that he must start converting his chances.
Robert Lewandowski 5: just as Jelen, very active but without a goal to his name. The best Polish striker when it comes to playing with the back towards the goal.
Patryk Malecki: looked quite lively, but didn’t change the course of the game.
Maciej Rybus: two nice dribbles on the wing followed by poor crosses.
Slawomir Peszko: has great speed and poor composure in front of the goal. Should have been the hero of the game.
Roger Guerreiro: will have to play better to win back his place in the starting eleven.
Maciej Sadlok: first cap for the Ruch Chorzow young defender.

Conclusions:

- the building of a new team will be a long process. Smuda’s magic isn’t enough for the type of crisis we’re in.
- it makes absolutely no sense to play in such conditions. We have to wait for the next games to be able to judge Smuda’s strategy.
- Ludovic Obraniak’s place is in the middle.
- Dariusz Dudka’s place isn’t in the starting lineup. Mariusz Lewandowski can still be useful to this team.
- Kamil Kosowski is still a good enough player to play in the national team.
- Marcin Kowalczyk and Piotr Brozek are both promising players and deserve a close look in the next friendlies.
- Adam Kokoszka doesn’t seem to me a better player than he was before moving to Empoli.
- we still need Michal Zewlakow’s experience, the younger players are light years behind him.
- Slawomir Peszko runs faster than he thinks.

Maybe we weren’t lucky enough on Saturday, but we also weren’t good enough to make any complaints. Another group of players (Szczesny, Glik, Majewski, Rzezniczak etc.) will get their chance against Canada and should at least score a goal to have something to build on next year. We’re at the beginning of a very long process and games like the one against Romania won’t necessarily be few and far between. The task is to limit those type of performances to minimum in 2012.

Ps: Franz Smuda claims that Sebastian Boenisch gave him his word that he’ll represent Poland. If that’s so he should be available for the next year’s friendlies.

Ps 2: Kuba Blaszczykowski suffered a minor injury on Saturday and won’t be available for the game against Canada.

You’ll find the highlights here.