One day removed from what proved to be Poland’s last game of the World Cup, and trying to properly challenge the reigning world champions proved too much to ask over 90 minutes. There are three negatives, which are perhaps more overarching and future issues, but two pretty sizeable positives, which I will delve into below, starting with the negatives:
1: We’re out of the tournament
Image via @FifaWorldCup on Twitter
Obviously the biggest negative, given it brings Poland’s participation in the World Cup to an end. There was plenty to be proud of, as I’ll go into later, but it is still a bit of a disappointment to be going out in the round of 16. Despite this, there is no shame in going out against a team like France and as has been well-documented this squad has got the furthest of any Polish side at a World Cup since 1986.
2: Michniewicz, tactics, Lewandowski and Zieliński
Images via Mikolaj Barbanell/Shutterstock
I thought I’d put this under one whole heading despite the fact I’ll be writing more fully about this issue in a separate article this week.
Poland finally played the kind of football which they have been capable of yesterday. Michniewicz looked to have tried to replicate the midfield three in which Piotr Zieliński thrives at club level for Napoli, and this worked well (especially in the first half). For all the criticism of Michniewicz, and there will be plenty of it, he got it right yesterday by finally removing the shackles of defensive football to give way to a system that let the most influential attacking players get time on the ball.
Post-match, both Lewandowski and Zieliński expressed how much better they felt the performance was on account of the more attacking football displayed, despite the scoreline. When asked about this in the post-match press conference, Michniewicz snapped and refused to give an answer, instead turning fire on the abilities of the journalist in question Wojciech Górski.
There’s been quite a bit of criticism of Lewandowski for yesterday, and the tournament as a whole. To me, this is a little unfair as everyone knows how isolated he has been in this World Cup, so to suddenly expect him to play flawlessly after three games with little to no support in the attack would have been a bit much even for a player of his ability.
As I said I’ll be writing on this topic more fully soon, but whilst it sounds like the players throwing the coach under the bus, it’s probably justified to want to play attacking football if you are an attacking footballer.
3: The defending for the second French goal
Image via Mikolaj Barbanell/Shutterstock
This was perhaps a more avoidable goal than any of the others. Matty Cash’s legs were going in the second half after over an hour of trying (and it has to be said mostly succeeding) to keep up with Kylian Mbappe. As Poland were pushing for the equaliser, Cash was caught up the pitch as France countered. Mbappe was in acres of space, and whilst there was no chance that Cash could’ve got back in time to stop the goal, Kamil Glik might have been able to move over slightly earlier. However, my biggest criticism upon seeing the replays was the passive jogging and ball-watching of the freshly-introduced Krystian Bielik, who’d barely been on the pitch two minutes. Had Bielik gone to cover Cash’s position rather than amble back in the centre, perhaps Mbappe’s first goal wouldn’t have occurred in the way it did.
4: Kamil Grosicki
Image via Mikolaj Barbanell/Shutterstock
I was incredibly down on the inclusion of Kamil Grosicki when the 26 man squad was announced before the tournament. I didn’t see the point in including a player, who despite his wealth of experience, had a year out of Poland’s squad between March 2021 and 2022 and was coming towards the end of his career.
Despite this, even after the first game against Mexico I thought he might be able to offer something off the bench, and thus it proved in the ten or so minutes he had on the pitch yesterday, winning the penalty which Lewy eventually scored.
I’d not be opposed to including him in the squad for the Euro qualifiers, given that Poland’s wing options lack experience, something which Grosicki has in spades. Furthermore he proved yesterday he is still capable of providing an injection of quality from the bench.
5: Zielu in his proper role
Image via Mikolaj Barbanell/Shutterstock
It was pleasing to see Zieliński deployed properly in a midfield three yesterday, and as such he gave his best overall performance in a Poland shirt since the similarly dominant display he gave against Wales in September.
There’s been plenty of discussion about whether the Poland side should be structured around him instead of Lewandowski, and personally I think yesterday showed that it’s a real possibility that a 4-3-3 could be the way forward for Poland whilst incorporating both Zielu and Lewy.
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