Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
Coming into this international break, it did already feel a little bit like a lot of the points people wished to make around Poland and Michał Probierz’s call-ups were going to be around injury.
This is even before the somewhat bombshell news that Robert Lewandowski would be withdrawing from the squad through back injury. Kacper Kozłowski’s calf issue has resulted in Michael Ameyaw being selected in his place, and absences for Paweł Dawidowicz, Mateusz Skrzypczak and Maxi Oyedele are also injury-related.
Admittedly those latter two may not have received call-ups even had they been fit, with Oyedele having received his “big” chance last month (and doing okay for the most part). Skryzpczak will likely be called-up again in the future one would expect, given even at 24 age is very much on his side and he is one of the more standout performers in his position domestically.
It’s also worth remembering that Matty Cash picked up yet another injury at the start of the month, although the chances of him being called-up by Probierz were pretty slim in the first place. Intriguing that in a recent and incredibly wide-ranging interview Piotr Zieliński sat down to do with Mateusz Borek for Kanał Sportowy, Zieliński mentioned that were it up to him Cash would be selected for Poland.
Obviously this is the big soundbite of the interview, and it does create a little more pressure for Probierz to either resist or bow to, especially given this is your captain (in Lewandowski’s absence) saying this. So far Probierz has been very resistant to cave to anyone’s expectations, rightly or wrongly, and no doubt will continue in this vein going forward particularly when it comes to the involvement (or lack of) for Cash.
No doubt the biggest of these injury stories is Lewandowski’s absence, and very little credence appears to have been given to French reporter Romain Molina’s story that this is part of a fractured relationship between Lewandowski and the national team. Rather the explanation is simply that a 36 year-old is playing very well for his club, felt a back injury, and on the advice of the doctors has pulled out of national team duty.
Age absolutely plays a part here in my opinion, as we’ve seen a lot of top professionals extend their careers after retiring from international duty. Other than Molina’s report, there doesn’t seem to be anything else suggesting that is the case for Lewandowski just yet however.
Also, a lack of Lewandowski doesn’t feel quite as much of a hammer-blow as it once did. Adam Buksa is back to fitness, Krzysztof Piątek is in really fine form in Turkey and we all know what Karol Świderski can do in a Poland shirt, even if he hasn’t been doing it recently.
Besides, having the trio of Zieliński, Nicola Zalewski and Kacper Urbański feels just as important nowadays as Lewandowski leading the line does, so I’m choosing to remain optimistic that Poland will cope against Portugal and Scotland.
In the headline to this article, I did slightly imply that injuries will not be the defining characteristic for Poland’s final Nations League games this month. I believe slightly more intriguing will be the use of younger players and those we haven’t seen as regularly up to this point.
That was pretty much what appeared to me the brightest points of October’s two matches, namely the positive impacts that Kamil Piątkowski, Jakub Kamiński and Michael Ameyaw all brought. Ameyaw especially has appeared bright off the bench and I had hoped that would continue, although a report written during the writing of this article from Mateusz Miga suggests that Ameyaw and Bartosz Kapustka won’t play any part in Poland’s first game against Portugal due to injury.
I’d be slightly more reticent to throw Antoni Kozubal into the fray as immediately as Probierz did with Maxi Oyedele, despite the fact they are both clearly good young midfielders.
Another perhaps more minor headline at the start of this break is the fact that Poland have chosen to fly straight to Portugal for their training prior to Friday’s match in Porto. It always surprises me we don’t see international teams do this more often, and it seems very much keeping with Probierz’s wish to create a very forward-thinking ethos in his Poland side.
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