The Czech Republic vs Poland Preview. Just Finish It Already.

I’m not really an expert on soccer strategies to be honest. However, when I see a team playing the long ball (and sticking almost exclusively to the long ball) as the plan of attack, it just screams lack of skill. It seems to me like this “strategy” is used often times by talentless teams like North Ireland or Greece, who hope to score off a lucky bounce. I mean, if you’re going to kick the ball down the field 100 times, odds are some defenseman will screw up at least one time.

Posted from  United States

It’s a matter of talent. We simply don’t have it. Most of our players can’t pass, control the ball, dribble, make quick decisions, deal with being under pressure, etc. And there is NO hope for the future. Globisz had admitted there is a huge gulf in technical ability between our young players and other countries’. This is all thanks to the PZPN and their sorry excuse for youth coaching and development. Unless the PZPN bring in some advisors to radically reform our youth structures, our senior NT will continue to wither and die. Our fans should continue to boycott as long as it takes. The PZPN can’t survive if all their revenue streams dry up.

Posted from  Canada

Zaraza: What kind of changes would you implement in our youth system?

Posted from  United States

Bring in consultants from France or Holland, they obviously know how to produce players of a high technical ability. Have them run our youth program. Less focus on results, more focus on developing technique and tactical knowledge. Our players never seem to outplay our opponents, they just rely on dumb luck. I remember watching the U-20 World Cup in Canada a few years ago. We fared better than expected in terms of results but it wasn’t because we actually were better than our opponents. Our wins against Brazil and Korea were pretty flukey, and we were soundly beaten US like 6-1 or something. The possession statistics were always heavily in favor of our opponents. It’s no wonder few of those players have gone on to any real success.

Posted from  Canada

*beaten BY the U.S.

Posted from  Canada

Jancyzk played great that game against the US-21, netting one goal early on a counter to give the lead and then responding again after the US’s first goal but then it was just the Freddy Adu show (4 or 5 goals) and seeing a bunch of Americans on the pitch running faster, looking stronger in challenges, and using the ball more effectively than ours.

Even just take the US as an example. For the longest time, and probably the majority still, youth weren’t being brought up right and coaches weren’t teaching them the game or fundamentals properly. And here in America, we’re not a footballing nation, yet over time with some more emphasis and proper teaching they’ve put together a decent team with more and more players playing abroad each year. And I really don’t think they’re much more talented than our Polish team yet they’ve been able to put results together and progress with modern football.

This just came to my head, I remember watching a taping friendly against the England U-21 late one night on FSC, I think it was leading up to the U21 WC, and the English announcers were very impressed with our team (probably because they were expecting to walk over us and it ended nil-nil) and really hyping up two or three of those players who were supposed to be coming over to England to play or were rumored to be.. and where are they now?

Tomek, I was being sarcastic. Even the Polish commentator said that he thought we were to implement a long ball tactic. Yet, when the play was bogged down in the middle of the field for lack of a Czech Offensive, there was no alteration. I can understand playing the first 45 to see if things can break open. BUt in the second half, after you were saved from going down 1-0 at halftime by an offside flag, why was there no tactical change? They did have some good plays. But when the ball went wide of the goal or straight into the goalkeepers hands that was the end. It felt like eternity before they brought it down again. And after the Czechs scored, Poland move forward for like one possession. The problem with Polish football is everyone from the PZPN down to the players. They still don’t look like they want to be there. Bringing in trainers or whatever from other countries is useless. These guys just don’t want to work for it. And why should they? Making the national team from here on out is only so they can play at the Euros. But if they go three games and out, well, they got to party at home for once. This is a Polish problem, and it will take a Polish solution to fix it. And it has to start with people caring. Apparantly Krzynowek said that Poland is considered a joke in terms of football. I think he’s right, and its gonna take people willing to work hard to change that. Saying that there’s not people in Poland capable of teaching the youngsters how to play is a joke. There are qualified people, but if your boss does his job half ass, how hard are you gonna work? You gonna fix everything so the boss can get the credit? Probably. It’ll take time, but it can’t stay like this forever. I just hope I’m alive to see the upswing.

Majewski is in Notthingham Forest =) lol

Thanks for your insight, zaraza.

Posted from  United States

Zaraza I desagree with you about U20, do you really saw the games ? Against Brazil we have played a really good tactical game, against USA we begin as well as we have thinked that the game will be very easy, and that was the reason of the bad game, against Korea we was very stressed but did a good game, and against Argentina the champion, we have played very well but this team was too good. What I mean, is don’t scrap the good results to prove your point, U20 did a great tournament but is a rare good performance of one of our teams

Well I’m sorry but I disagree. I remember that we were clearly outclassed technically. Here are some possession stats:
38% against Brazil
41% against the U.S. (our highest achievement!)
38% against Korea
39% against Argentina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_FIFA_U-20_World_Cup

We were lucky to advance to the Round of 16. We got one flukey win against Brazil, then got battered 6-1 by the U.S. and then only tied against Korea. Even the tie against Korea was more luck than anything. Their players were much more skilled technically, they were just terrible at finishing. Why do you think so few of our players failed to establish themselves, even in the Polish league? The most successful are Janczyk and Malecki. But they’re both playing in low ranked leagues. The rest haven’t established themselves even in the Polish league. Do you think our players are discriminated against? Let’s be serious here, they’re just not up to par.

Posted from  Canada

Zaraza is absolutely correct. The scorelines aren’t any indicator of how we played. We played the kick the ball up the field and pray the other team makes a mistake tactic. Poland won the 2001 UEFA U18 Championship. Yet, how many players from that crop are on the current national team?

I remember reading that an Italian coach said that in Italy the kids at a young age are encouraged to play around with ball, be creative, and just have fun. They are not worried about results.

In Poland, for the most part, the players have good physical attributes, but they have very little technical ability. It seems that there is no focus on the technical aspect of the game at the grass roots level. This is one of the things that separates Poland from the majority of the teams on the international stage.

Posted from  Canada

Sorry, but the possession stats is only one side of a game, important but not the most important, to win a game you have to score more goal than the other team, the victory against Brazil was great, the game against Korea was also great, the only mistake was that we have think that USA was a easy game after had beat Brazil.
The number of player that perform in higher leagues after is another discussion, Janczyk took his CSKA Moskow contract because of his great performance after this tournament.
My point is that it is not because PKZN is a scrap that we have to bitch the performance of our players that give us some great moments, all is not black or white

I think you guys are bang on about the youth system. The coaching is maybe the biggest problem. The way our youth are being taught the game does not help them develop properly. There is no structure and its very disorganized at all levels. The fact that the youth system is weak has been established. Now I think its affecting the commitment of the kids that play. No one trusts the youth system to help them develop and take them to the next level.

Another reason is identifying talent early. I would go even as young as 5 years old. At that age, most kids are on the same level of development. However, some kids are more equal than others. Once you have established that a set number of kids are your future, you have to invest in their development. That goes back to the coaching and exposure to international play early. Right from the start you have to teach them discipline and hard work. Most of all, you have to show them how to be professionals. They have to be shown that what you put in is what you get out.

Talent comes and goes. In our case, there is a lot of talent that goes to waste because of the youth system. This problem can be seen at even the U21 level. There are a lot of guys that have never played for the other youth teams in their careers. Then you have guys like Robert Lewandowski that have never played for any national youth teams until he was discovered by Beenhakker. It no surprise that the only player I can remember from the 2001 u18 team is Kuszczak. What happened to the rest of them?

I think what would really help is if each team in the Ekstraklasa was required to have at least one kid 18 or younger on the pitch at all times. These kids would be comfortable in knowing that they will not get pulled in favour of a 30 something if they make a mistake. This would allow them to focus of developing their game playing against men. As for the clubs, let’s not kid ourselves, its not like that would hinder their chances at European championships or anything.

Then again, the main problem could be that everyone has an opinion on how to fix the youth system or the PZPN, but as far as I can tell its all just talk until someone actually does anything about it. Better men have tried and failed. Maybe the Euros will help shift the country’s focus back to football.

One positive point, the boycott seems to have worked!: There were few Polish supporters at the Czech game, and some of them cheered along with the Czechs when they scored, and screamed “JESZCZE JEDEN”.

Posted from  Netherlands

The U19 team lost today 2-1 to Azerbaijan……..Michal Kucharczyk was the only goal scorer, he has two goals in the tournament, is he any good?
I was looking on P2P the Polska vs Holland U21 game looks like it will be streamed.

Poland U-17 4-1 Armenia, very nice. Poland U-18 1-2 Azerbaijin, WTF??? Azer is now also leading the group.

Polska U-17 beat Armenia 4-1 today. The goal scorers were: Michał Nalepa, Łukasz Bogusławski, Arkadiusz Serafin and the first goal was an own goal for Armenia.

I thought I heard Germany stole Kamil Wiktorski from us, but he playied today in the U-17 game, so thats good news for us.

a, the youth system is a double edged sword. Back in 2003 on a plane ride back from Poland I picked up a Polish magazine. In it was an article about the youth in Poland lacking commitment to football training. It talked about how in even running around the track to develop endurance, they would skip out and congregate under the bleachers, or off site. I forget who they interviewed who explained that his experiences in France showed that French youth would train hard. It seems that a lacking commitment to train goes up and down the youth levels. That’s clearly visible six years later when the nation has nothing to show for football. You cannot blame the youth coaches entirely. And even at the senior level, it does not look like the team plays with much determination. You get out of it what you put into it.

Absolutely, adas, its all about training. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t train it goes to waste. Talent can get you only so far but to get to the next level its the effort you put in on the training ground. Sometimes as a youth it may seem easy when you’re ahead of your peers in your local or regional area, and to form lazy habits, but as you get to the senior level and start seeing people who are just as good as you are, if not better than you are, it comes down to training regimen and the desire to always improve and do everything you can to become better at your sport.

But that’s precisely why blaming Polish coaches and trainers is total crap. Spending big money on big foreign names isn’t gonna help the team. It’ll just cost a lot of money and get us nowhere. What we need is a coach who can do two things. 1)Straighten out the team so that only the players who will fight to play will be on the team. 2)Stand up to the PZPN. Boycotts will ruffle feathers, but this is something that needs to be blown up on the inside. I’m not saying Leo’s criticism was unwarrented. I just think he should have been more vocal and stood up against the FA while he was in office. I understand he might be too old for that kind of crap, but if he wanted changes he should have fought for them.

I wish people would be a little more positive on this blog. Majewski is a new coach and is bringing a new philisophy to this team. He let youngsters like Grosicki and Janczyk play, something Leo never really did. He let Kowalewski play goalie, who played pretty solid and made some great saves. I guarantee if we had this type of goaltending instead of the crap we got from Boruc in a couple games, we probably would be 2nd or 1st place in this group!

Look ian, there were a few good moments in the game against the Czechs. Moments where the team played together and really caused the Czechs some problems. But there were literally two or three. Those moments were the best the team has played in a long time. I agree with you, that there should be some more positive things on the blog. Unfortunately, the problems in Polish footy anger a lot of people who think they know how to fix everything. I’m disappointed because it seems like everything is wrong. If you’re gonna blame anyone, you have to blame everyone. I think we’ll start to see more positivie results when the team plays together more. It seems like the players being used are a little more interested in playing on the team than the last bunch. In time things will get better. Its just a huge disappointment that progress has completely stopped.