Poland-San Marino Preview. Is Leo Beenhakker’s Job At Stake?

March 31st, 2009 | by: tomasz |

Will this be Leo Beenhakker’s last game for Poland? We may have thought so on Saturday, but it seems that Leo will manage the Bialo Czerwoni till the end of qualifiers. Henryk Kasperczak and Franz Smuda, main candidates to become Dutchman’s replacements, say that they’re not interested, at least at the moment. Moreover, the Polish FA can’t afford to fire Leo as they would have to pay him a large money compensation. However, all may change if we fail to defeat San Marino. Fortunately, that’s impossible, right?

Everybody fired Leo on Saturday and Sunday, but now it doesn’t seem as easy. First of all, we still have a chance to qualify to the South African World Cup. We would just have to win almost all remaining games and count on good results between other teams. This may enable us to finish second in the group and take part in the play off matches. Leo is far from resigning, he says that he still believes in qualification, at least on the outside. We also can’t forget that Leo earns good money in Poland and won’t throw it away that easily. To be honest, he can’t be blamed. Henryk Kasperczak didn’t even want to comment on the possibility of taking reigns of the national team. Franz Smuda said that he would be interested if it meant that he remains the coach until Euro 2012. He doesn’t want to take responsibility for the 2010 qualification. Jerzy Engel stated in an interview that there is no chance of him returning to the national team, he’s happy with his job at the Polish FA. No other candidates seem to be taken into consideration (although I read today that the FA may want Piotr Nowak to become Leo’s assistant). The financial matters are also of great importance. Our FA can’t afford to pay Leo’s wages and employ another coach with, more or less, similar salary at the same time. Finally, although Leo has lost the trust of a lot of fans, there isn’t that much pressure to hire a new coach as in the case of Pawel Janas after WC 2006. A win in a good style in the upcoming game should mean that Leo stays till the end of qualifiers. Then, in case we don’t qualify, we’ll have more time and options to choose from to employ a coach that will lead us to the Euro 2012 success.

What will be our squad against San Marino? There isn’t much speculation since any eleven that we’ll field for the game should and must win convincingly. Two changes in the squad are certain though; as we all know Artur Boruc returned to Glasgow after the Irish nightmare and will be replaced by Lukasz Fabianski. Marcin Wasilewski suffers a yellow card ban so we should see Lech’s Grzegorz Wojtkowiak being given a chance. Michal Zewlakow is lightly injured, in case he doesn’t recover Bartosz Bosacki will most probably take his place (though I’d like to see Adam Kokoszka). I also don’t think there’s a need to play Tomasz Bandrowski against San Marino, we should replace him with a more offensive player. Roger may play alongside Mariusz Lewandowski in the centre of the field and a linkup player (Boguski) or a second striker (Saganowski) may be brought in. I would also like Robert Lewandowski and Irek Jelen to swap positions, I don’t think the Lech starlet would be much of a help on the wing. Kuba Blaszczykowski is still unfit, it would be very unwise of the coaching staff to include him in the starting lineup. One last change that I would like to see is using more offensive Jakub Wilk instead of Jakub Wawrzyniak. But it’s just my opinion, I haven’t read anywhere that Leo is considering it. Basically, even with Lukasz Sosin in attack we must be victorious against San Marino. Let’s buy ourselves some hope till autumn.

Poland World Cup Blog RSS Feed

Comments

By Witold | March 31st, 2009 at 7:36 pm

I don’t understand why Fabianski who has not played since long time will begin the next game? Isn’t the same case than for Smolarek? We can tell that he is 100% fit? Why we won’t give to Zaluska the chance? I think that an easy game, after a horrible one like last saturday, is the good opportunity to test some new blood, Kokoszka, Zaluska, Janczyk, just a reminder to the players that they haven’t a given place in the team

By Adrian | April 1st, 2009 at 2:57 am

Fabianski is not a bad goalie. If anything, I think he is a very good goalie. As for Smolarek, I am not sure he is on the list of players available for San Marino’s game.

Posted from Italy

By drewsky | April 1st, 2009 at 5:42 am

Poland can still win this division.

Go Poland

Posted from United States

By Adrian | April 1st, 2009 at 8:48 am

Actually Smolarek is on the list of available players. He played in the last San Marino game…
I agree with drewsky.

Posted from Italy

By adas | April 1st, 2009 at 8:56 am

Poland can’t lose. San Marino have only one player on the team who has ever scored an international goal, and that happened against Slovakia last year. Their all time leader Andy Selva has eight. He’s the only player from San Marino to score more than one goal for the country. This can unify the team with a good perfermance.

By gregorio | April 1st, 2009 at 10:29 am

I think we can rule out the possibility of losing to san marino. if we did’t win, I don’t think there’d be anyone to support leo anymore. but it’s just theoretical speculation, we are gonna win.
but a win itself won’t be enough I guess, the boys must show that the last game was just an accident, a really bad day of demobilisation and that it won’t happen again. only crushing san marino today can they clear the air around our NT a bit, and make leo’s position any better.
and the goal differential may count at the end of the qualifiers, so we need a result today. what do you think should be satisfactory, 4-0 or up?

Posted from Poland

By drewsky | April 1st, 2009 at 11:11 am

I agree gregario,it all could come down to goal differential.Lookin for 5-0 today.Would be nice to see R Lewandowski,Jelen and Roger get on the scoreboard and it would also be nice to see Fabianski pitch a shutout.

Go Poland

Posted from United States

By tomasz | April 1st, 2009 at 11:46 am

Our starting lineup: Fabianski-Krzynowek, Bosacki, Dudka, Wasilewski- Smolarek, Roger, M.Lewandowski, Jelen- Boguski- R.Lewandowski. I don’t know what’s with Wasyl, everybody claimed that he has a yellow card ban. Apparently not.

By adas | April 1st, 2009 at 12:23 pm

The atmosphere should be there for Poland to play well. It never really made sense to me that playing on the road should be difficult to do. But the team isn’t really playing like a team, so I guess the fans booing you, among other stuff, might get to them. This here is a gimme though. San Marino, in Poland, young players who scored in the last game, and Leo is the coach. There is obviously no chance for a loss. The thing is, they need to score more than two, and none of that giving away penalty kicks business. Its time to act like the superior team they are and dominate this game. If they look sloppy, I can’t blame Leo alone. I don’t blame him for all the problems in the Euros, especially because the team just looked scared at times, or out of their element. As a coach, you can’t give the players big game experience. Friendlies don’t cut it. Go Poland.

By dmac | April 1st, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Okay guys, this is one of the places to watch the game online now. It is not in perfect quality though:

http://www.justin.tv/krauze/popout

Posted from United States

By kazik | April 1st, 2009 at 2:03 pm

Great start – 3-0 after half an hour! Phew….

Posted from United States

By adas | April 1st, 2009 at 2:12 pm

If it stays like this in all games, this group will be blown wide open.

By kazik | April 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm

We needed this for our psyche’s sake. Some goals are just ugly or too easy, and San Marino looks like they pulled out these 11 players from the Trattoria this morning, but just for us we needed this!

Posted from United States

By kacinski | April 1st, 2009 at 3:22 pm

10-0, this is how you play soccer properly. Of course San Marino is not a good team, however we now played with confidence, moved the ball with purpose and seemed to want to play. Smolarek, I must admit played a hell of a game, it is about time!

By Rydzynski | April 1st, 2009 at 3:24 pm

10-0! hahaha, thanks for posting the link for the live feed, I watched the last 20min at work. Probably the most attacking i’ve seen them play for quite a while. This definitely takes a little bit of the sting out of last saturday’s ugly loss. Helps with the Goal Differential as well. Great to see Ebi scoring again, even if it is just San Marno that bicycle kick was amazing. Go Polska

By Wejher | April 1st, 2009 at 3:42 pm

Beenhaker needs sacking we should have won 64-0. Kidding. Amazing result, maybe Adamek did have a word in their ears. Smolarek was on fire much more effective on the left that Krzynowek, but i got to say Jelen was awesome his work rate was unbelievable, chased every ball, used the ball well, I’m glad he got his name on the score sheet. Hope that result scares our opponents into panicking when we attack.

Posted from Greece

By Radek | April 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm

Good job Polska, 10-0, perfect, I was hoping for a double digit result. Just too bad the Slovakians scored late in the game to win against the Czechs, and also too bad the Slovenians lost 1-0 to the Northern Irish. Now the NI team and fans are thinking they will qualify for the WC, which may be a good thing, as they might come to Szczecin in the fall feeling overconfident.
Keep up the awesome work on the blog!

Posted from Canada

By adas | April 1st, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Northern Ireland don’t frighten me. They only have three games left to play. Slovakia scare me a little because they’ve only played five times to Poland’s six. Hopefully Poland can win the group outright, because I’m not sure a playoff will work in their favor.

By chester | April 1st, 2009 at 4:24 pm

Hopefully all the cock ups are out of our system now. This is the boost of confidence the team needs. I think we can win all of the matches left if we use this set up again. I loved how krzynowek was set up worked great. Smolarek showed his amazing technical skills and he will give Orbaniak a good run for his money on the LW position. Jelen showed potential just missed simple shots. Lewy was great 3 assists but i wish he could of finished some of the those chances. Bright side is that he was always attacking and causing chaos just needed to finish. M. Lewy was also good today nice goal and nice header that bounced of the bar. Sagan is our super sub. Roger just didnt have it today, but some nice passes though.

By gregorio | April 1st, 2009 at 4:26 pm

We are now in quite a good position, given that we still are to play N. Ireland at home and Slovakia, too. So if we win everything (we must believe it if we don’t want to give up already), it’s enough that Slovakia lose 2 pts. I’d say, some 50% chance we go to RSA if we do our share in the qualifiers properly.

Posted from Poland

By Witold | April 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pm

I’m very happy for Ebi, and for the team, a good thing before a 5 months break.

By Rysio | April 1st, 2009 at 5:28 pm

Just the result Poland needed. This group is so close its crazy, I really think Poland should aim to finish top though.

Posted from United Kingdom

By paradowski | April 1st, 2009 at 11:55 pm

Viva la Polska! ^^^^ yes, good to see Ebi Smolarek again!!!! Actually I didn’t see anything yet, but followed the tally as I worked. Nice list of goal scorers – cheers to them all! Cheers to the team! that includes Leo! I just watched a few goal highlights and see Ebi had an assist too. Even my Man U friend from England and Wales, acknowledged “Poland get ten!” before I told him, when he usually just ‘puts-up’ hearing about Poland from me.

By drewsky | April 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 am

Despite the poor opposition it was a welcome sight to see Poland play with this type of (sledge hammer to a flea) mentality.As Wejher said, maybe they did have a word with Adamek.

Go Polska

Posted from United States

Comments are closed