Toulouse Loses Patience With Smolarek. Plus A Poll Regarding Ebi’s Situation.

July 16th, 2008 | by: tomasz | Comments(4)

As expected, Toulouse couldn’t wait any longer and officially resigned from acquaring Ebi Smolarek from Racing Santander. The Polish striker is very reluctant to leave Primera Division and didn’t want to move to a inferior club. As a result, Toulouse will have to spend the money they got for Johan Elmander elsewhere. What does it mean for Ebi?

There are two options left for Smolarek. The first one is that he stays in Santander and starts a season from a position of a backup player. Racing very easily accepted the French offer for Ebi, hence they don’t really consider him a crucial player. They’ve got Tchite, Munitis, Bolado and they bought some new strikers so they are ready to let Ebi go. Now it’s all up to Smolarek to convince the new coach, Juan Ramón López Muñiz, to give him a chance. A positive scenario is a one where Ebi is a squad rotation player and slowly earns the manager’s trust, a negative one leaves Ebi looking for a new club in winter. This summer’s second option is an unexpected offer for Smolarek from a respected club. This means an offer from Primera Division, Premiership, a top French or German club or a one that plays regularly in the CL. By the latter I mean the likes of Fenerbahce or Olympiakos, whose offer that I wrote about last time turned out to be complete bollocks. What’s your view, what should our star striker do?

What should Ebi Smolarek do?
( surveys)

Other news: Michal Janota strikes once again. This time he had 2 goals and 3 assists in Feyenoord’s 9-1 win against Groot Goes. I think a senior debut this season looks more and more probable. I hope I’ll finally get to see him in some Polish youth team match.

Wigan Athletic’s two Polish youngsters, Tomasz Cywka and Tomasz Kupisz, extended their contracts with the club. That’s quite a positive info as it means that the club considers them to be a potential first team players in the future. Especially Cywka, who’s already 20 years old, should make his senior debut sooner than later.

Nottingham Forest are interested in Marek Saganowski. I’m not an expert on Championship, but from what I’ve read Forest are more likely to fight for promotion than Sagan’s current team Southampton. In my opinion, Saganowski’s place is in the top Championship teams, especially if he still wants to be considered a national team player. I hope that he won’t have to fight to avoid relegation for the second season in a row.

Finally, Polish FA decided to create a new national team: U-23. This team is especially designed for players who are too old to play for the U-21 team but are not yet good enough to play for the senior team. The U-23 games would be scheduled along the senior games, using dates provided by FIFA. Players from both Polish league and abroad would make the team. I find it a good idea; in this way we would keep track of more players and be able to judge first handedly if they’re ready to play on the international level. It would also end the media wining to call up this and that player as he would first have to prove himself in the U-23 team. I hope that this idea will go through.

Still no sign of Adam Kokoszka signing for anybody.