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Slovakia-Poland Preview. Who’ll Leo Beenhakker Be Today, A God Or A Piece Of Shit?

October 15th, 2008 | By: tomasz | 16 Comments »

Sorry for the swear word in the title, but I’m just paraphrasing what Leo Beenhakker said after our win against the Czech Republic. Leo said that in Poland he’s either treated like a God or like a piece of shit, and he’s, in fact, neither. Poles just tend to see the world in black and white only; you’re a hero or a zero. So what is Leo going to be this evening? I hope the he’ll be a manager that did his job well.

Leo’s outburst after the Saturday’s game was rather unecessary, but it was true at the same time. The critique that Leo had to go through lately wasn’t purely based on how the team played; he was bad because he earned a lot, he was bad because he was Dutch, he was bad because some of his assistants were Dutch. He was even accused of receiving parts of transfer fees of players that he calls up to the national team. Nobody, of course, was able to prove that, but the climate around Leo deteriorated nevertheless. What are the critics saying now? They’re certainly not praising Leo. In fact, they’re writing that we won because the coach finally listened to what the journalists had to say. It was the critics, not Leo Beenhakker, who picked Pawel Brozek for the game. It was the critics, not Leo Beenhakker, who were aware of Kuba Blaszczykowski’s superb form. It was the critics, not Leo Beenhakker, who believed that Rafal Murawski can repeat his league performances on an international stage. Only the players are to be praised for the win, not the coach. Hail the critics, they opened Leo’s eyes.

Enough of this science-fiction, what’s the reality? It was Leo Beenhakker who stated at the beginning of the campaign that Brozek is his starting striker, therefore installing confidence in Wisla striker. It was Leo Beenhakker who called Jakub Blaszczykowski Polish Cristiano Ronaldo. It was Leo Beenhakker who started Rafal Murawski in four of the last five national team games. The way I see it, the man deserves at least some praise. I hope you noticed that I have always tried to stay as objective as possible with regards to Leo. I have an utmost respect for him for what he’s achieved in Poland, but, at the same time, I criticised the team when they deserved it. It’s a shame that the Polish press can’t look at the national team from a larger perspective and is becoming more tabloid-like. I hope that they’ll have nothing to chew on this evening.

But what about the today’s game? There’s not much to discuss as far as our starting lineup is concerned. Leo won’t change his Czech Republic squad, apart from the left back position (Jakub Wawrzyniak is injured). There are two candidates for this spot: Jacek Krzynowek and Grzegorz Wojtkowiak. The Wolfsburg player is more likely to start, as he was the one to replace Wawrzyniak on Saturday in the first place. Moreover, Wojtkowiak is a natural right back and is rather considered a backup for Marcin Wasilewski. Other than that, the same players will start as on Saturday (no more “Boruc or Fabianski?” debate). Although there are some good Slovakian players (Hamsik, Vittek, Mintal, Karhan, Skrtel, who’s injured), we can beat them as long as we continue to play as organised and confident as on Saturday. Moreover, this won’t really be an away game since Slovakian fans are boycotting it (apparently they are pissed at the state of Slovakian football). As a matter of fact, there will be more Polish fans, who are more than eager to see another great victory of their team. Another Polish night? Hopes are high.

Other news: Adam Kokoszka is finally elligible to play for Empoli. Maybe he won’t ba a wasted talent after all.

Tags: Beenhakker, Blaszczykowski, Brozek, Group A, Kokoszka, Krzynowek, Murawski, Poland, Slovakia, Wojtkowiak

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Comments

By kacinski | October 15th, 2008 at 5:58 am

I agree, beenhakker deserves credit for what he has done with the national team and hopefully with more wins people will recognize him for what he has done

Posted from United States

By MarcinO | October 15th, 2008 at 8:23 am

I think that Beenhakker is old and experienced enough not to be affected by the media. But that outburst after the game was somewhat surprising. I don’t think he has let the media dictate his decisions with the team. I guess he takes what the reads personally, especially after bad performances.

The Polish media is almost as bad if not worst than the dumbass British tabloid-style “journalists” when it comes to football. They write articles no matter how stupid just to be controversial and to fill space in the newspapers.

Krzynowek has been showing his age in his recent performances. He showed that he cannot play a full 90 minutes. To fully utilize him, I think it would be better for him to start the game and help set the tone early. He will be useless if he comes in the second half if we are down a goal or two.

By MarcinO | October 15th, 2008 at 8:31 am

Brozek twins wanted by Bologna FC? Has anyone else heard anything about this?

By adas | October 15th, 2008 at 9:36 am

The only criticism I truly have of Leo, is that at times it seems like he can’t motivate the players. Looking back at the Euro performance, part of the problem was that the players didn’t look motivated or even happy to be there. The team was filled more with nerves or fear I guess. And at Leo’s age, I would get tired of everything being a love hate relationship too. Poland will not be an international power over night. As many of you have said, the whole football system needs to be revamped to develop talented youth. Without that, any success this team has will not be repeated for a long time to come. You can’t blame that on Leo, he won’t be around long enough to fix that.

By Hieronim | October 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

What a bunch of bullshit. You can’t really take anything away from this game because the pitch was a piece of fucking shit. It was very sloppy to give two goals within 90 seconds and Boruc takes the blame for the first one. But the sportsmanship displayed by the Slovakians was appalling. Complete assholes. When we meet again in Poland we will absolutely crush them. Disappointing loss, and now those jackasses are the top of the group, but I think we’ll be fine. Gargula played well when he came on. Good to see him get some minutes.

Posted from United States

By adas | October 15th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

I couldn’t watch the game. Someone explain to me what happened please.

By Hieronim | October 15th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

@adas
I only caught from the 52 min onwards. Basically, the pitch was a giant puddle and i believe it was raining. In the 70th min Kuba played a brilliant flick to P.Brozek at the top of the box who then passed across the keeper for Smolarek to knock in. So it was 1-0 and we stayed in control up until the 80th min, then the slovaks started pushing and subbed on a bunch of attackers. in the 85th min a goopy-ass cross was played in and Boruc just couldn’t collect it for some reason and a slovak knocked it in. 1-1. Less than 2 min later a slovak ran down our left side of defense and played a ball to the top of our box. A player shot the ball and Dudka deflected but it hit the post and the same player hit it in underneath Boruc. 1-2. We pushed forward after that and Lewandowski had a great chance to score but hit it over. The slovaks started getting really chippy after that. I think the ref should’ve added on more stoppage time for the antics they pulled…

Posted from United States

By PhilippFc | October 15th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Boy it looked like Boruc and Dudka popped open a couple beers a little to early into this game. what a shame, we controlled the game, and it looked like we would have full momentum going into the next WCQ games. Good for Smolarek to get a goal against a pretty legitimate opponent, and Brozek is staking his claim even further for that number 1 strikers role. Coulda,shoulda,woulda.

Posted from Canada

By adas | October 15th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

So I take it, they didn’t play as bad as the scoreline, or the speed with which the two goals were given up, would appear.

By nick | October 15th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

words don’t describe how painful that was

Posted from New Zealand

By Raz | October 15th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

hey tomasz, when you create posts previewing a matchup, can you throw in some quick basic info about the match. when, where, time noting the time zone, in gmt would be nice. your blog is pretty much my 1stop for polish national team news and it would be nice to not have to google each time for that info. thanks in advance.

Posted from United States

By adas | October 15th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

I like how Slovakia’s coach said the team was lucky to get the win, then said the team deserved it.

By Paradowski | October 15th, 2008 at 8:03 pm

No kiddin’ that was painful. and I was only able to monitor the score while at work. I knew Ebi scored! but the website (lame-ass ESPN.com can’t even provide the game time minutes) suddenly updated with the 2 late goals at once and my heart sank.

As with Raz: this is also my 1st stop for Polish NT news. It worked out great Oct. 11 with halftime score from Mike, and knowing we won from Witold — thanks. I’m looking for websites to get the games, but not sure about that and prefer to find a non-betting site if possible. Even foxsports had Czech-Slovenia today, but should have covered the two leading Group 3 — that’s messed up.

I would like to here more about how the defense did prior to the collapse at 85′ 86′.

Posted from United States

By Alek | October 16th, 2008 at 4:56 am

@Paradowski
bwin.com shows the score live but doesnt show the lineups which blows, but sport.onet.pl has a pretty good live match engine but it likes to crash, this was the first match i could get onto in a few months.

By gregorio | October 16th, 2008 at 5:05 am

the game itself was shit. both teams in terms of organization and technique were pathetically poor.

@paradowski
as for our defence, they made enough not to let any 100% chances. the slovaks had some long distance shots attempted by wittek, their skipper, but he usually couldn’t keep balance and sent the ball miles above our goal. it was kinda funny.
wojtkowiak was really poor and he gave away a few free kicks 20-30m from our goal. but the set pieces were hardly any threat.
boruc only had to cut those crossed ball wich were aimed somewere in the box, most was aimed out of the pitch.

to me, the game seemed like a typical away 1:0 to forget, with us being the less weak side and having enough individual skill to take the 3 pts. even though the whole team was underperforming. and then…i’ve never seen polish nt be such suckers before.

and how the slovaks tried to steal the time after their 2nd goal was indeed outraging, they did nothing to deserve the win.

Posted from Poland

By paradowski | October 16th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

@ Alek and gregorio Thank you for the info. and description. That’s too bad — seems like polish nt lost focus and respect for the weaker team. With the win in sight, the bialo czerwoni should rally and defend strong until the final whistle.

Posted from United States

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