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Does anyone have an update on Jelen and when he will return from his injury in mid or late November?

Posted from  United States

Jelen had a minor injury against Bordeaux the other week. I think he should be back for the Coupe de France next week and for some upcoming ligue 1 matches in mid january. He only had a minor knee injury. Any news on Pawel Golanski or Wasilewski?

Here’s an article on Laurent Koscielny
http://www.efakt.pl/Koscielny-musi-grac-dla-Polski,artykuly,60608,1.html
It would be a nice coup if we got him. Unlike some of the other names that keep getting bandied about (see Boenish), Koscielny regularly earns excellent reviews.

L’Equipe ranks Koscielny #3 on their list of the best transfers in Ligue 1 this season:
http://www.lequipemag.fr/EquipeMag/Top5/top-5-des-bonnes-pioches-de-l1-20091222_170110.html

Football.fr named him one of the discoveries of the season:
http://www.football.fr/footballfr/cmc/ligue-1/200953/l-equipe-type-des-decouvertes_78919.html

I think a lot of people over-hyped Smolarek. I was never sold on him and never was. I though he was better than this, but he certainly didn’t fall nearly as far in my mind as a Kuba or Boruc.

Not sure if anyone cares, but Smolarek has a new Polish buddy with him at Kavala http://www.polishsoca.com/newswire/poles-abroad/1990-sosin-inks-2-year-deal-with-ao-kavala-fc

^ for sure I care; wouldn’t we all like to see Ebi have a great comeback. My “biggest disappointment” comments above made me feel no good about rehashing the NT disappointments. Really it was such an overall team disappointment in the qualifiers. We’ve all seen some great Smolarek highlights like the one time bicycle kick goal, no reason not to get our hopes up at times. From a NT perspective Roger could have been included in the disappointment category; so could have Beenhakker. In this way, I know I’m stretching the categories, but maybe Smuda can be a best newcomer – let’s hope.

On an off topic note: I just saw this, though it was announced a few weeks ago: TOMASZ ADAMEK vs JASON ESTRADA on February 6 http://www.bokser.org/content/2009/12/07/180636/index.jsp “Goral” should be able to handle “Big Six” as he doesn’t take anyone too lightly. Although Estrada has lost a couple fights, apparently no one as ever knocked him down. It will be nice to see Adamek deck him.

Posted from  United States

I think Sosin should be called up to the National team against Bulgaria. If he does well with kavala I do not see any reason in not calling him up. He is big and has had sucess in Greece in scoring goals. Also, he could be a good setup with Ireneusz Jelen, because Robert Lewandowski has done nothing for the national team. If both Smolarek and Sosin do well in their greek clubs then I believe they should be called up to the National Team. It is going to be interesting to see the Kadra in this friendly and it would be fun to see them win, they have the capability. It’s going to be interesting to see how our defense matches up against Berbatov.

IMO we should use these friendlies to prepare our team for Euro 2012. Calling up Sosin is pointless, he’ll be 35 then, highly unlikely he’ll be part of the squad. He’s just taking away a chance for us to prepare someone like Janczyk or Janota who we’ll have to rely on in a few years.

Janczyk’s goal: http://mundialowo.blox.pl/2010/01/video-Dziewiata-bramka-Janczyka.html. A team got bounced from the Belgian league. I believe Janczyk scored two against that team. So I guess this will affect his goal total?

What is this nonsense of the PZPN wanting to get rid of Tomasz Wałdoch from helping the national team? Isn’t he one of the main scouts? I can’t see this actually benefiting the national team or making Smuda’s job any easier. Another unbelievable move by the FA. What’s next? Lato will appoint his grandson and make him the highest paid scout?

It won’t affect Janczyk’s goal total, only club stats are wiped.

Not sure what’s going on with Waldoch. Is it definite that he won’t be Smuda’s assistant? I think it’s totally unprofessional of the PZPN to drag out this issue for so long.

Does anyone know if Ludovic Obraniak is going to join Stade Rennes or another club or is he going to stay at Lile?

There are conflicting reports in the French media. Some say he’ll be leaving and a variety of clubs have been linked with him. However, one Lille site suggests that most likely he’ll have to wait until the summer. The reason being that some of Lille’s players are leaving for a couple months on African Cup duty and they’d be crippling themselves if they let Obraniak leave now. Also, apparently he’s backed off from his previous comments where he insisted on a transfer, he seems more willing to stay at Lille if he gets more playing time.

thanks. Obraniak is a good player. It would be a waste for him to be rotting on the bench. I would love to see him get more playing time as he has shown potential when he has been playing. I mean, he is the future midfielder for the national team and is a leader, he needs to be seeing regular field time in ligue 1, especially when Lile are doing so well in the league. Now that Gervinho is gone, it is going to see how Obraniak fits back into his orignial role in the center of midfield for Lile. Also, what do you think about incorporating Lukasz Piszczek into the national team again. He has been used in a variety of posistions. He is normally a right sided midfield player, but I have seen him at right back and up front. Any thoughts on the future national team, who should be called up. This King’s cup will give us a clue of any domestic talent that is not yet been seen. There are several names on that list which I would like to see in the future Kadra and a few that I do not want to see again (Iwanski). Again, any thoughts about these topics.

Lille also climbing to the top of the league recently probably might have influenced his backing off too. But Ludo can’t be the leader of the team. Sure he is probably one of the most talented but like he said himself in an interview, a leader needs to yell a lot and right know he’s still just beginning to learn the language. Kuba is also one of the best but he seems far too soft spoken to me to be a leader. Strong characters like Wasilewski or Boruc would have been ideal but not anymore with both their recent situations. I think Rafal Murawski would be best as he lead Lech Poznan pretty well as captain. Maybe Jelen, maybe…

Hey Tomasz, many (mostly club though) blogs are doing a “Best team of the decade” post, will you do this as well for POland?

Posted from  Netherlands

Phil, from what I’ve heard, Piszczek lately have been very poor for Hertha. If he doesn’t find his form soon, he may drop out of the starting 11 after the winter break. It’s a mystery what happened to him this season. Towards the end of last season, he put in some good performance for Hertha, it looked like he was finally finding his feet in the Bundesliga. This season he seems to have severely regressed…

As for the future kadra, I think Radoslaw Majewski and Dawid Janczyk deserve more opportunities. I’m puzzled why our NT managers seem so lukewarm on them, they’re barely gotten a chance in the last year. Majewski is doing really well in the Championship and Nottingham Forest have a good chance to join the Premiership next season. I read that Majewski looked very good against Premiership players in the FA Cup against Birmingham.

As for completely new players, I’d love to get Laurent Koscielny. We are in desperate need of good defenders and he’s one of the top-rated ones in the French league.

Do you guys know if teams in the Ekstraklasa have football specific schools? I know teams like Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan have junior teams that start around 10 years old. I’m talking about schools where half of the day the kids do normal school work and the other half they focus on football. A friend of mine, from Croatia, was part of a school like that until he and his family were forced to leave the country because of the war. He told me that they have a lot of those types of schools back home. I guess that would explain why a small country like Croatia (pop 5 mil?) produces a lot of quality footballers. I know they have two well known teams but other than that I’m not sure their league is any better than the Ekstraklasa. Setting a proper foundation for kids to train and develop will ensure a better rate of success. Do our teams have schools like that, or is it still to soon due to a lack of infrastructure? If any of you could shed some light on this I would greatly appreciate it.

Awesome writing…..As always.
The blog is fabulous
Webroyalty

Kavala tied their game 2-2 today. Lukasz Sosin got in the game at the 76th minuite and Ebi Smolarek was not even on the bench. Hope he plays in the next couple games. Funny how Lukasz Sosin has only been there four days and he is already on the pitch whereas Smolarek has been there a month and did not even get on. Do you know if he got an injury or something before the match. With the way the new Nigerian striker has been playing it is going to be hard to include both Smolarek and Sosin on at the same time.

The other Jacek Zielinski has been chosen as Smuda’s assistant instead of Tomasz Waldoch.
http://www.90minut.pl/news/112/news1121097-Jacek-Zielinski-asystentem-Smudy.html
Absolutely ridiculous. Waldoch’s (and the others) contract should have been signed before the Romania and Canada friendlies, not drag it out for so long, and then pull the rug out from under him by picking someone else. As usual, the PZPN discredits itself with its utterly unprofessional and deceitful behavior.

Update on Koscielny:

Unlike Obraniak, his grandfather lost his Polish citizenship before 1951 so his descendants are no longer automatically entitled to it. So, in his case a simple confirmation of citizenship is out of the question; he’ll need the President to actually grant it. This process normally takes three years! However, like in Roger’s case, support from the PZPN could help speed up the process to only a few months. The question is, are the people at the PZPN as determined as they were with Roger?

Reports from France suggest Koscielny would be a very useful addition to our team. He’s one of the most highly rated central defenders in Ligue 1 and this is only his first season! He will only get better. Apparently, he has already gathered all the required documents proving his Polish origin. If the PZPN make an effort to push through his citizenship, there’s a good chance he’d play for us.

Another pathetic move by the PZPN. Waldoch would at least bring a different attitude & background than Zielinski. Waldoch had 12 years in the Bundesliga & some coaching experience outside of the EK (which to me is a huge plus). Not to mention Waldoch’s potential influence on getting young Polish players from the Bundesliga to play for Poland.
I thought Smuda had more balls & would stand up to the PZPN old bastards & he would force them to sign his first choice assistant.
I think Zielinski is another PZPN puppet.

The EK is rated as the 43rd best league in the world! how poor is that.
They are rated in between Angola & Moldova. How can a young Polish player develope in a league like this. See entire list with link below.

http://www.iffhs.de/?b6e28fa3002f71504e52d17f7370eff3702bb1c2bb11

Phil – I read that Sosin started for Kavala and Smolarek came on to the pitch in the 76th minute. But I read it from a Polish news article so I am not sure if it is accurate.

That ranking is shocking. The ‘lesne dziadki’ have run Polish football into the ground. After Euro 2012 the Polish government needs to take bold action against the PZPN. In the meantime, fans should continue to snub NT matches. No sense in wasting one’s money to line the pockets of Lato, Engel, Krecina and their cronies. I’m tired of the excuses for the poor technical ability of Polish footballers, lack of funding and good training facilities and so on.. It’s not like Angola has better conditions! The current “leadership” has to get the boot one way or another.. otherwise there will never be the complete overhaul that’s so desperately needed for Polish football to move forward.

Absolutely zaraza — ultimately, the biggest disappointment continues to be the PZPN. Waldoch would be a great compliment to Smuda with his field experience as a successful defender. With Smuda’s attention to an attacking style, Waldoch would be great for our young developing defenders.

Posted from  United States