Roberto Acquafresca is an Italian after all.

March 20th, 2008 | by: tomasz | Comments(2)

As expected, Roberto Acquafresca chose to play for Italy, the country of his father and the one where he was born. He politely thanked Poland for the interest and decided to fight for the place in the Squadra Azzura squad in the future. This whole fuss brings a question to my mind: why is it that we can’t find those players earlier?

Hardly a surprising decision by Acquafresca. He made a conscious choice and decided what’s best for his career. We can’t really blame him, there isn’t much linking him with Poland apart from the nostalgia factor. The Italian side also reacted immediately after the “Polish” rumours had started spreading with Pierluigi Casiraghi and Gianfranco Zola (current youth team coaches) convincing Roberto to stay with Italy (the Olympic Games must have also helped to make the decision). So, the case is closed, but what can we learn from it?

Personally, I think that it’s high time we establish a professional scouting department that would search for players with Polish background all over the world. By we I mean the Polish FA. We must reach those players when they are fifteen or sixteen and establish a bond between them and the country of their ancestors. We ought to show that we care for them, organise some “welcome groups” consisting of famous players from the past and present. There should be a constant contact between the Polish scouts and the youngsters playing abroad. We can’t just count on the parents of those kids to teach them some affection for Poland, we must stimulate it. There is much work to be done since children of the Polish emigrants from the eighties are growing up. Look at what the Turks are doing in Germany; they managed to convince the Altintop twins to play for Turkey. And they are constantly monitoring hundreds of Turkish descendats playing there. Some time ago I read an interview with a Polish scout working behind our Western boarder. He is not a full time worker and I don’t know if the FA even refund his phone bills or the gas money. He has no arguments to convince young palyers of Polish origin to play for our youth teams. What he can count on is only this nostalgia factor. But not everybody is a son of Wlodzimierz Smolarek, right?

Here’s a list of players that we’ve already lost (feel free to add the ones that escaped my memory in the comments): Miroslav Klose, Lukas Podolski, Piotr Trochowski, Dariusz Wosz, Lukas Sinkiewicz, Danny Szetela, Ben Sahar, Robert Olejnik (I’m not sure with this one, he’s an Austrian keeper), Andy Johnson, Phil Jagielka, Tomasz Radzinski, Roberto Acquafresca, Paul Freier, Sebastian Tyrala (maybe it’s still an open case, the guy is from Borussia Dortmund), Michal Delura, Tomasz Sokolowski (played for Norway), Diego Klimowicz. Just from the top of my head, and there are hundreds of undecided players (especially in Germany). We should already be fighting for the likes of Lukas Jutkiewicz from Everton or Daniel Sikorski from Bayern. Moreover, there is a case of Ludovic Obraniak (photo on the left) from Lille who wants to apply for a Polish citizenship and help us in the next qualifying campaign. He’s an attacking midfielder and a regular for his team. Worth a very serious look, in my opinion. POLISH FA, GET TO WORK YOU OLD GRANNIES!!!!!!!

Update: In today’s Przeglad Sportowy Zibi Boniek claims that Acquafresca still hasn’t made up his mind and that his previous statement was misinterpreted. According to Boniek Roberto is to decide about his future in the middle of April. I don’t know what to think about all of that.