Where’s Poland At? Strikers.

January 3rd, 2011 | by: tomasz | Comments(14)

2010 was a year where Robert Lewandowski grew to be Poland’s starting striker. Out of all players, he played most minutes for the Biało Czerwoni and was benched only once by Smuda. He also ended the year as our national team’s top scorer with six goals. Ireneusz Jeleń, the supposed leader of our attacking line, missed most of the international games due to injury and will have to fight hard to win back his place in the team. Sadly, apart from the aforementioned two Poland lacks international level strikers at the moment.

Strikers who played for Poland in 2010:

Robert Lewandowski 999minutes\13games\6goals
Ireneusz Jeleń 258minutes\3games\1goal
Dawid Nowak 231minutes\6games
Kamil Grosicki 127minutes\3games
Paweł Brożek 126minutes\3game\2goals
Marcin Robak 112minutes\4games\1goal
Euzebiusz Smolarek 93minutes\4games\1goal
Szymon Pawłowski 45minutes\1game
Dawid Plizga 45minutes\1game
Andrzej Niedzielan 21minutes\2games
Artur Sobiech 20minutes\3games

Winner of the year: Robert Lewandowski
Lewy was clearly one of the best Polish players in 2010. First he won the Ekstraklasa title with Lech, adding the golden boot for the top goalscorer in the process. Then he was a hero of the most expensive transfer out of the local league as Borussia Dortmund paid more than 4M for his services. Though he’s failed to win a starting place at Dortmund, Lewy nevertheless managed to score his share of goals as a substitute and played an important role in Borussia’s success story. He had his ups and downs in the national team (poor games against Cameroon or the USA and great ones against Bulgaria or Ivory Coast), but all in all, I think that we’ve got a better striker in Lewy now than we had a year ago. Watching his progress in the Bundesliga, I’m sure he will become an even better player in 2011 and will remain the leader of our attacking line. From the look of things, this may be our Euro 2012 star.

Loser of the year: Dawid Nowak
Smuda was a true fan of Nowak, but the Bełchatów striker failed to convince both the fans and the coach with his international performances. He received a fair amount of chances, in important matches as well (Serbia, Spain), but he’s never seemed to switch from the Ekstraklasa football to the international one. Now Smuda says that he partly lost belief in the player, both due to his unimpressive displays and extremely poor health. He’s rarely available, and when he is he gets injured instantly after receiving the call up. What I’m most disappointed in is that Nowak didn’t change clubs, though he had a serious offer from Polonia Warsaw (even signed a contract with them, just to terminate it later) and probably could have played for any top Polish club. There is a conviction among experts that he was just afraid of tough competition and opted for a safe place and wage at his Bełchatów. Big fish in a small pond if I ever see one. He doesn’t seem to have the character, or health, to play an important role in the national team.

Missing: Artur Sobiech
I know he played in three international games, but honestly what can you say about Sobiech’s usefulness? He got injury time against Finland and Serbia and had more minutes to play against Spain, in a game that can hardly be used as a judgement basis for any of the players. The truth is that Smuda hasn’t really tested a player universally recognized as the most talented Polish young striker. With both Lewandowski and Jeleń healthy, Grosicki in good form and Brożek effective in the game against Bosnia, it will be really hard for Sobiech to break into the team. Unless he starts playing on Lewy level in the Ekstraklasa in 2011.

Smuda’s current Euro squad: R.Lewandowski, Jeleń, Grosicki, Brożek, Smolarek
Smuda knows that he has no other choice, but to base our attacking line on Lewandowski and Jeleń; they’re our only strikers scoring regularly in serious European leagues. The question is whether Smuda decides to play them both at the same time or whether he opts for only one of them. When he played them both (Finland and Australia), one of them had to end up on the left wing to fit Smuda’s strategy. In both situations it didn’t look particularly impressive since both Lewy and Jelonek feel best when playing as the player highest up the field. The solution to this situation is playing 4-4-2 formation, but so far Franz has resisted to change his strategy as he prefers to have more players in the middle to exchange the short passes and control possession. I’d like to see a couple more tests with both players on the pitch, but I wouldn’t like to see one of them being forced to play out of position. I think it would weaken the team in the long run. At the moment, Smuda seems to favour Grosicki, Brożek and Smolarek from the remaining strikers. Grosik got 90 minutes against Bosnia and has been receiving call ups regularly in the last couple of months. Brożek scored twice against Bosnia and will surely receive further chances from Franz. Ebi may be Smuda’s talisman man; he counts on his goal instinct and grew to like him after their initial meeting. If Smuda is convinced about someone it’s very hard to change his mind.

My perfect lineup: R.Lewandowski, Jeleń, Grosicki, Smolarek, Niedzielan
Lewy and Jeleń are definitely the best options, full stop. I need to see more games with both of them on the pitch to decide whether they can play alongside each other. From what I’ve seen so far it doesn’t seem very likely. Grosicki can add an extra spark from the bench: he’s got the speed and the dribble, something that’s very rare among Polish players. It’s better to have such an option on the bench than another defender of defensive midfielder. I’d also stick to Smolarek, even though his latest form has been horrible. I believe that he can do better and I believe in his record for the national team (47 games\20 goals). He’s not good enough to be a starter, but he’s the best candidate for a last minute decisive goal impact sub hero that we have. Finally, I opt for Niedzielan instead of Brożek, as long as he maintains his scoring form that is. Broziu may be a better player skill wise, but he lacks the character and determination that Niedzielan has. The Korona striker is a good squad player; I’m sure he’d add both to the atmosphere in the team and the quality of our attack. I’m not forgetting about Sobiech, but I think that he’s still got some way to go to compete with Brożek or Niedzielan at their best.

What do you reckon?