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Poland-Serbia 1:0. Rafal Boguski Proves His Worth.

December 15th, 2008 | By: tomasz | 21 Comments »

We’re finally through with 2008 as far as the Polish national team is concerned. In the ultimate game of the year the Polish “B” team defeated their Serbian counterparts 1:0 after a goal from Rafal Boguski. For most players it was probably their only cap in the next few years, but a few may join the “A” team as early as 2009. Who used this chance and who blew it? Let me play the role of Leo Beenhakker for a moment.

Poland-Serbia 1:0 (Boguski 53′)
Poland: Sebastian Przyrowski – Piotr Celeban (56. Jakub Rzezniczak), Tomasz Jodlowiec, Piotr Polczak, Marcin Komorowski – Sebastian Tyrala (56. Szymon Pawlowski), Antoni Lukasiewicz (56. Grzegorz Krychowiak), Lukasz Tralka, Rafal Boguski (82. Adam Danch), Maciej Malkowski (82. Michal Zielinski) – Dawid Janczyk (67. Tomasz Zahorski)

The game itself wasn’t, of course, very competitive or thrilling. The goal was to see if some players who shine in the Polish league are able to confirm their abilities on the international scene. With no disrespect to teams like Polonia Bytom, Lechia Gdansk or Odra Wodzislaw, their players very rarely have a chance to compete against foreign teams. Leo also wanted to check which players are fast learners and are able to “memorize” what’s expected of them in the strategy used by the Bialo Czerwoni coaching staff.

The biggest surprise for me was the fact that the team looked quite organized. There wasn’t much chaos on the field, we controlled the game; it was evident that the players became a team in the course of the training camp. We used high pressing and tried to recover the ball as fast as possible. The central defenders weren’t kicking the ball forward with their eyes closed, but tried to keep possession whenever possible. The central midfielders, since they’re no artists, concentrated on playing simple balls to wingers and Rafal Boguski. It was the Wisla player who was expected to drive the play forward and decide which option is the best choice in this particular moment. Boguski was a level above other players, he took part in almost every offensive play and was always available for the ball. The wingers, especially the left one (Malkowski), were provided lots of opportunities to dribble or cross. Unfortunately, both Malkowki and Tyrala didn’t prove to be the players that can make a difference with a single move, we failed to see a single successful dribble from them. The best winger of the game was… our left back Marcin Komorowski. He presented a surprising tactical awareness, he knew when to run forward or play a one-two with Malkowski. His crosses also weren’t of the worst sort; something that’s quite surprising for a player who often sits on Polonia Bytom’s bench. The right wing wasn’t used as often since Tyrala wasn’t given much aid from Piotr Celeban, who forgot about his offensive duties. Finally, it was clearly visible that Dawid Janczyk is a player born to play as a single striker, good at keeping the ball and running at defenders. It was also visible that he needs to start playing regularly in order to further develop and be able to apply a finishing touch when needed. I hope that his talked about loan deal will go through during the upcoming transfer window.

Player ratings:

Sebastian Przyrowski 6: a confident performance, saved a one-on-one situation. As it often is a case with Polish goalies, he’s got problems with accurate kicking of the ball when under pressure. Should compete with Lukasz Zaluska for the place in the “A” team.
Marcin Komorowski 6: one of the biggest surprises. Had an assist and took part in most of our offensive plays. Always provided an additional attacking option for midfielders.
Piotr Polczak 6: has the physical attributes of a great central defender. Yesterday he also proved that he knows how to play with the ball at his feet. Pack your bags Mariusz Jop.
Tomasz Jodlowiec 6: finally we could see him in the national team when not paralyzed by pressure. Good positioning and distribution of the ball, which shouldn’t be surprising as he started his Ekstraklasa career as a defensive midfielder.
Piotr Celeban 5: flawless in defence, but was nowhere to be seen near the opponents’ penalty box.
Antoni Lukasiewicz 5: a wrestler-like built defensive midfielder played very mature, but I sense he’d have problems when faced by high pressing. His moves are sometimes too slow.
Lukasz Tralka 6: confident on the ball, good passing ability, useful both in defense and offence. A player singled out for praise by Leo.
Maciej Malkowski 5: one of the most active Polish players, but he doesn’t possess the ability to dribble past defenders. Didn’t confirm the reputation of a good crosser of the ball as well.
Sebastian Tyrala 4: nowhere to be seen, no crosses, no dribbles; always chose the safest option, that is passing to the nearest teammate.
Rafal Boguski 7: fulfilled the role of a linkup player perfectly, always near the course of the action, always asking for the ball. A tricky goal to accompany all this. A fully fledged member of the actual Bialo Czerwoni team.
Dawid Janczyk 6: only a blind man won’t spot the potential that he possesses. Very fast and energetic, makes his physical presence felt, not afraid to run at two defenders at once. Regular play is all he needs.
Jakub Rzezniczak 5: a performance that won’t cross out his name from Leo’s books. A more attacking player than Celeban.
Szymon Pawlowski 5: more active and dynamic than Tyrala, good dribbler. Lost the ball stupidly a couple of times.
Grzegorz Krychowiak 5: an 18 year old who played as mature as his older teammates. Makes good decisions, has a powerful shot. Should be a regular team member in 2/3 years time.
Tomasz Zahorski 5: an ok game, but I’d write the same thing about him a year ago. Still fails to show something extra, something more than ordinary.
Adam Danch, Michal Zielinski: didn’t play long enough to be rated. Zielinski is definitely one of the fastest Polish players.

Do such games make sense? How many players will become important members of the “first” team? Apart from Boguski, none of them should play a decisive role in our World Cup qualifying campaign. Five or six players (Jodlowiec, Polczak, Tralka, Janczyk, maybe Komorowski and Zahorski) may receive regular call ups from Leo. Still, it was Boguski who earned his first cap in a similar game against Bosnia a year ago and made huge progress since then. If only others can follow his example.

Highlights:

Full highlights

Here’s Boguski’s goal if you want to save some time

Tags: Beenhakker, Boguski, Celeban, Group A, Janczyk, Jodlowiec, Komorowski, Krychowiak, Lukasiewicz, malkowski, Pawlowski, Poland, Polczak, Przyrowski, Rzezniczak, Serbia, Tralka, Tyrala, Zahorski

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Comments

By MarcinO | December 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am

Great game by Boguski. I will still reserve my judgement on Tyrala until he gets regular playing time at club level. Considering what he went through to get on the national team, he probably played a little too cautiously to avoid making mistakes. Nice to read that Janczyk is still the real deal unlike Zahorski. I can’t wait to see what type of player Krychowiak develops into.

On a personal note, I would like to wish everyone on this blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Cheers.

By marco | December 15th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

the word in london has it that leo is eyeing the vacant manager spot at sunderland not sure what to make of it? ( as the transfer window is the silly season). there has been a lot of ill feeling about polish football of late coming from him. i hope he is only venting a bit of anger and not just speeking freely as he plans to exit the job soon. i for one hope he stays. any way winning form is good form so well done boys.

Posted from United Kingdom

By marcin | December 15th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

can anyone tell me, in full detail, what is going on between leo and antoni piechnczek? i dont even know who the antoni guy is. and i dont read polish well enough to understand the situation. plz ?

Posted from Canada

By Alek | December 15th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

antoni piechnczek is still pissed about euro and wants Leo to explain himself, but everyone has moved on. Leo just blew off the guy which is the thing that I would do.

By zaraza | December 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Thanks for writing a little about each player. Will be interesting to see if any of them manage to become key members of the NT in the next few years. Boguski should, at the very least. Krychowiak also sounds very promising but the thing is, our youth have had no luck breaking through at foreign clubs. I hope he has the sense to move on if they keep him in reserves for too long. Not sure about Janczyk, he does worry defenders a lot but every time I’ve seen him his finishing has been abysmal. Could simply be a case of not enough match practice like you said.

Posted from Canada

By zaraza | December 15th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

I don’t particularly whether Leo stays or goes. He earns a huge salary (even more if you include his “sponsorships”…) and I’m not sure he has really justified it. It might be better to invest that money in more youth development. Also, some of his comments about Poles and Poland have seemed very disrespectful.

Posted from Canada

By zaraza | December 15th, 2008 at 11:25 pm

that should have been: “particularly *care* whether”

Posted from Canada

By Karol | December 16th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

it depends how you look at it. i for one agree with all that leo has said about poles, as i pole myself i can admit we have such flaws.

By dmac | December 17th, 2008 at 2:08 am

What did leo say about Poles?

Posted from United States

By tomasz | December 17th, 2008 at 4:23 am

All is settled know, Leo apologised to Piechniczek and the latter accepted the apologies. Leo shouldn’t have said that Piechniczek is a nobody for him because he showed lack of respect for one of Polish football’s legend. On the other hand, Mr Piechniczek lives in the past and always talks about the 80s when analyzing our current situation. He seems unaware that football has changed a lot and the same solutions are inapplicable today. Piechniczek doesn’t like the fact that we lost the ability to counter attack which we were famous for. He doesn’t understand that Leo has different philosophy, a one of organized possession play.

@dmac

Generally, Leo sometimes says that Poles are not moving on and are not open enough to what’s happening around the world.

@zaraza

It’s the Tyskie brewery that pays most of Leo’s salary, so it shouldn’t stop PZPN from investing in our youth.

Posted from Poland

By tomasz | December 17th, 2008 at 4:25 am

“now” instead of “know” of course

Posted from Poland

By zaraza | December 17th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Tomasz, it would be fine if he had said something like that in a diplomatic manner but he didn’t. The way he phrased it was very condescending and dismissive of other people’s opinions. If I remember correctly, he implied that anyone who disagreed about Roger being called up must be a backwards country hick.

He completely disregarded the fact that some people had legitimate reasons for not agreeing with the decision and it wasn’t simply a case of xenophobia.

I think he should treat Polish opinions with more respect and not resort to insulting people simply for not agreeing with him.

By the way, even the seemingly “progressive” English thought it was cheating for Poland to call up Roger, and there was huge opposition to the idea of calling up Arteta or Almunia to play for England. Likewise, the majority of Scottish people seem to hate the idea of Nacho Novo playing for their country.

Posted from Canada

By Tomek | December 17th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Lech defeats Feyenoord! They advance to the next round
(What a crappy match though >.>)

Posted from Netherlands

By zaraza | December 17th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Karol, you seriously agree with everything that Leo has said? I think he would have been fired a long time ago if he tried to pull this shit in any other country. A lot of these supposed “flaws” that we have seem to be widespread in other countries too.

Posted from Canada

By Witold | December 17th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

I’m agree with you Zarasa. And why we are saying that we are that bad. What did the fantastic football french machine this year? What did Italia, England etc… We are not that far from these teams.
And what did Leo for us? What he did that the other polish coaches didn’t? We was qualified last 2 worldcup, Leo bring us to Euro, we were bad in worldcup, we were bad in Euro… We were 33th in 2001, 34th in 2002, 25th 2003,25th in 2004, 22th in 2005, 24th in 2006, 22th in 2007 and now 34th… So what Leo did that good so that it can afford to criticize like that our country…

Great for Poznan! Great for Smuda! Smuda ! Smuda!

By Paradowski | December 18th, 2008 at 1:56 am

^Tomek — Yeah! Didn’t see the match, but knew Lech would make it through to another game!

I think Leo is good because more players want to play for Poland now. Any team needs to make it to playoffs/finals more often to be strong in those finals. If Poland NT can make it to the World Cup and Euro finals more consistently, they will build a greater winning chance. Now we wait to see Leo and team can finish strong in Group 3.

Posted from United States

By tomasz | December 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am

@zaraza

I completely agree with you, Leo should have never phrased his opinion in a way he did, both in case of Roger and Piechniczek. I remember writing about Roger’s case on this blog and, as everybody, I had my doubts. This is also not such a widespread trend as Leo presented it, for every Deco (Portugal), Camoranesi (Italy) or Senna (Spain) there are countries you mentioned that don’t want any “naturalized” players in their squad. Leo has a strong personality, he very often gives interesting opinions, but he sometimes should watch his language more.

Posted from Poland

By Paradowski | December 18th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

Great article and comments again — I really appreciate since I don’t have access to the Polish sports media. I tend to be too positive, but just happy to be a fan and finally have access to internet at home and sites like this.

@ tomasz @zaraza: I didn’t know much of these situations. Certainly, a coach or manager (and Leo) can have a greater impact and gain respect from players and fans if they voice their opinions with respect to others even when they disagree.

Seems whenever I read what Smuda has to say, I respect him more and become a greater fan!

Gratulacje Kolejorz!

By dmac | December 18th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

tomasz, you said:

“@dmac

Generally, Leo sometimes says that Poles are not moving on and are not open enough to what’s happening around the world.”

Can you explain that a little bit more? What does that mean?

And when you said:

“Piechniczek doesn’t like the fact that we lost the ability to counter attack which we were famous for. He doesn’t understand that Leo has different philosophy, a one of organized possession play.”

The awful game against Germany that we had where we played that ridiculous high-trap, weren’t we going for some kind of counter attack? I am not sure if Leo is really that organized.

Posted from United States

By paradowski | December 18th, 2008 at 9:39 pm

I have been searching for more information [i.e.: http://www.polishsoca.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1404:leo-some-people-just-spit-in-my-face&catid=34:national-team&Itemid=57 and now when I see that Leo’s big problems come from the PZPN, I feel strongly that I am on Leo’s side. The “election” of Lato, demonstrated to me an acceptance of the old corrupt ways. In this situation, Leo cannot even give it his best shot.

@dmac : the biggest problem at EURO 2008 was injuries and many players did not execute well at all. In more recent World Cup qualifying it is clear that those on the pitch need to work and focus for an entire game. Yes, the coach as responsibility for that, but the players need to be physically and mentally prepared to perform at their top level for 90+ minutes. Why many ‘head cases’ on the field; who can have patience for that; it’s a game, the men/players should give it their all while they have the chance to play it!

The prospects for success have gotten much better since 2006 and Beenhakker overall is building a better NT.

By dmac | December 19th, 2008 at 1:53 am

Very interesting, thanks for the information paradowski.

Posted from United States

Comments are closed