Squad For The Ukraine Game. No Boruc. What Is Our Tactics?

I think Leo should only experiment with the formation if he has any thoughts about changing within in the year. If not he should keep it the same. If some players are out of position then so be it, its better to have one or two players playing a foreign position then the whole team playing in an odd format.

Ok so this squad brings up the question why is’nt Janczyk playing? because he is’nt playing regularly for his club???? if thats the case why is Smolarek there? Janczyk needs to start getting a feel for th international stage now before a major tournament so that he grows comfortable and is able to work with the rest of the team.

Posted from  United Kingdom

I’m with Wejher on this one. The sooner we include Janczyk into the fold the better, and the point of Ebi not playing reg. club footy is valid. I certainly don’t feel that Dawid should replace Ebi, but should be warmed up slowly. Ebi got a lot of flack for the Euro, and understandably so as he was quite non existent but the reality is that he is still one of our best players, any way you dice it. I hope he get in form. As for Boruc, i don’t think its a big deal if he doesn’t play for the NT in a couple friendlies. He’s established to the degree that he doesn’t per say have to prove anything. And it can only be good for Fabianski. The kid has talent and to him every game must matter as he will be in a tough competition trying to usurp Almunia. I feel comfortable having him in goal. And i doubt Boruc minds. Does anyone know definably whether Janota will be in the senior squad this season? in his club football i mean. I found some info in Dutch, but unfortunately, im not quite that multilingual. Let’s hope we’re lucky today.

Or better yet, let’s hope we don’t have to be lucky.

Ouch, so i think we were fortunate to end one goal down. The Ukrainians looked the sharper side. We lost a lot of balls in midfield and their marking was better then ours, i think. Wasn’t a great game.

N()()B

Posted from  Canada

I got a chance to watch the game today. This was another weak showing that does not provide any promise for the future. Looking at our U21 squad, the future does look rather bleak.

First of all, they played like they were allergic to the ball. They seemed incapable of making simple passes. Every time there was a fast break opportunity, there we saw another dumbass pass. Instead of moving up the field with lead passes and through balls, the ball was always delivered in the opposite direction a player was expecting the pass. It is as if they were deliberately passing to the wrong spots.

Jelen wasn’t able to do anything because the midfield play was garbage. How is he supposed to score goals without the ball? After making countless runs toward the opposing net and never receiving the ball in a proper place it is easy to assume that anyone would get discouraged.

With the state of Polish football, why not focus on the younger players. Players over 30 should not even be on the team for a friendly. We rely on the likes of Krzynowek, and even Lewandowski, to start but I’m not sure if anyone has noticed that he is well passed his prime. He looks out of place and out of breath most of the time. We don’t need players like him making rookie mistakes, leave that to the younger players who can learn from those mistakes and get better. Those geezers are like a cancer to the youth who poison their minds to turn them into reflections of themselves. This cycle must stop.

Yeah! Krzynowek helped us hold Ukraine to just one goal. Give this clown a gold medal. I’m sorry but this should not be acceptable. It would be a different matter if he offered something positive to the team. At this point, I don’t care what he has done for our national team mainly because it was not significant anyway.

Finally, the whole team looked very disinterested throughout the game. I know it was only a friendly, but have some pride and dignity when you put on that jersey.

I know I mentioned some rhetorical questions already, but why does it seem like no one on the squad can play a full 90 minutes? Their endurance and physical fitness level is laughable. Smolarek and other attackers are too weak to hold off defenders and force things to happen. Our defence seems too slow to react and too slow to keep up with opposing attackers. If you don’t have the God given talent then what is stopping you from being the fastest or strongest on the pitch? Phrases like “no heart” and “doesn’t work hard enough” get tossed around our national team too often. This lack of fitness is why injuries are a higher than normal occurrence. We hold our fingers crossed that they don’t sneeze and pull a muscle.

tonights performance….Crap! bomb out the over 30’s as already mentioned by someone else and concentrate on the up and coming youth – the players who are likely to represent us at the next 2 tournaments, or are the Polish FA still counting on Krzynowek and Zurawski to make an impact at these??? Maybe addidas or nike can make some football zimmer frames for them?!

Posted from  United Kingdom