Images via @FCBarcelona and @Inter on Twitter
With two weeks since the last international break and with two weeks or so until the next one, I thought now would be a good time to talk through a few Polish-centric things I’ve picked up on in the past fortnight.
Obviously when writing this I’ve got one eye on the upcoming Poland internationals, and given Michał Probierz’s penchant for surprises I’m sure we’ll see a few in that squad. Rather, I wanted to speak about some of the bigger Polish names who’ve made an impact across club football, and one or two slightly less obvious players who stand a good shot at being named by Probierz for the November games.
Starting out with the most obvious one, and that was Robert Lewandowski playing his part in Barcelona’s demolition of Real Madrid in the most recent Clasico. Opening the scoring with a quick fire brace early in the second half, Lewandowski had two incredibly presentable opportunities for a hat-trick to boot. I’m sure it’ll matter little in the end, as he is still leading La Liga’s scoring charts and Barcelona were good value for the 4-0 scoreline, but still.
What jumped out at me in the usual post-match social media discourse was the view of those outside of Poland, who saw Lewandowski’s performance as cementing his legacy as the best striker of his generation ahead of the two names he is always compared to, Luis Suarez and Karim Benzema.
For me, I will obviously be biased towards Lewandowski, but it worth trying to quantify these fairly fruitless comparisons in a more sensible manner. Suarez is perhaps the more complete football player and his technical ability was certainly the best of the three. Benzema, other than his one season which culminated in what could be termed a “kind” Ballon d’Or win, never really became a better forward than he was as a wonderkid in Lyon, but his trophy haul is impressive thanks to his time in Madrid.
Lewandowski statistically is far closer to Messi and Ronaldo than he is to either Suarez or Benzema, and it should be noted he has been able to perform at the highest level for longer as well. He should also have a Ballon d’Or to his name, but that’s football politics for you.
This is obviously before we get into how important he has been for Poland throughout his career. Oftentimes there is great pressure on being a world-class striker for a “smaller” footballing nation in Europe, we’ve seen it before with Andriy Shevchenko and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and no doubt we will continue to see the phenomena with Erling Haaland and Benjamin Sesko. Lewandowski’s finest individual tournament was probably Euro 2020, but he was also a great catalyst of Poland’s famous Euro 2016 run, not least due to the fact opposition defences paid him far greater attention than the other attackers.
I think it’s somewhat safe to say that when Lewandowski does choose to retire, he will rightly go down as having an individual legacy greater than either Suarez or Benzema, not least due to his longevity at the top but perhaps also thanks to his importance to a national team that doesn’t get world-class forwards coming through every few years.
That’s a nice segue to speaking about one of Poland’s other potentially world-class players, Piotr Zieliński. He’s starting to find his feet at Inter Milan, and the two penalties he tucked away in the first half of the Derby d’Italia against Juventus was a nice display of someone now properly settled at his new club. There was a little concern that his hamstrings might be playing up again, but it was suggested by both player and manager Simone Inzaghi that it is not serious.
Zieliński hasn’t started a great many games yet for Inter, but at the weekend he was picked to start one of the most important league fixtures as well as the most significant Champions League match so far against Manchester City.
It’s clear to see then that Inzaghi places a great deal of trust in Zieliński, and having a manager trust you practically straight away is a testament not just to his ability but clearly also his attitude, something which does always seem to be levelled at Zieliński like a criticism on account of his more seemingly laidback nature.
Speaking of having a manager’s trust, it’s painfully obvious that this is not something that Jakub Kiwior is experiencing at Arsenal. Brought on as an early substitute in an eventual defeat against Bournemouth, only to make a mistake which sealed his team’s fate late on when they were already behind, and get substituted himself.
Similar occurred when he was introduced against Liverpool, although it was hardly like he was at fault for their equaliser given a good ball into the channel and the speed and precision with which Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah were able to work together to engineer a fairly straightforward opportunity.
Nonetheless though, it is irritating that Kiwior is thrown into these situations in which Arsenal can’t possibly hope to succeed. Down to ten men away at Manchester City, down to ten men away to Bournemouth and introduced at a point when his team had started to cede control of the tie against Liverpool, it does almost feel like Kiwior can’t possibly win.
His mistake at Bournemouth, whilst unfortunate, did not deserve the embarrassment of being taken off immediately after. Then we have the situation before the game even kicked off against Liverpool, when Mikel Arteta preferred to play people out of position rather than trust Kiwior. I know I’m biased here but I find it almost disrespectful that Kiwior is simultaneously not trusted by his manager but not allowed to leave on loan or permanently, despite it becoming increasingly clear that would the best concerned for all parties.
It’s likely that Kiwior would only be a back-up in a similar way to how he is at Arsenal in any of Europe’s top clubs, but there comes a point where if the manager is not trusting you (for whatever reason) and you’re barely playing, there is no point staying to see if something changes. Of course, when Kiwior had a run in the Arsenal team last season they were arguably at their best, but the return to fitness of Jurrien Timber and the purchase of Riccardo Calafiori mean he is even further down the pecking order than he already was.
Moving on, I’d like to mention in passing the ongoing unfortunate efforts of Jan Bednarek to make a meme of himself. I’ve already said that I think Bednarek is often very unfortunate, as it seems he is almost always in the wrong place at the wrong time when it comes to goals conceded, even though they are invariably not his fault or if they are it’s usually more of a collective breakdown.
Part of a collective collapse almost all season at Southampton it seems, he had the unenviable task of marking Erling Haaland at the weekend. It did not take long for Haaland to score, and Bednarek did exactly what he should, getting as tight as possible and putting his body between the attacker and the ball. Yet, both Haaland and Bednarek ended up on the floor and Haaland was able to poke the ball into the net from a prone position.
It almost beggars belief really that Bednarek seems to consistently be in these situations, you’d therefore assume that he is clearly not a very good defender. Whilst he’s hardly Paolo Maldini, I don’t think Bednarek is anywhere near as bad as some people want to make out. Frankly, Bednarek has the same problems like a lot of decent if not amazing players in his position, he’s a solid if not outstanding Premier League defender. He certainly looks more assured than his Southampton teammates, and I think he’s also been better than Paweł Dawidowicz for Poland this calendar year.
Looking slightly below the top level and I wanted to highlight Kacper Kozłowski picking up two assists for Gaziantep this weekend. Having to pull out of the last international break thanks to injury, I really hope he gets another call-up this time around as he definitely has the ability to contribute from the midfield.
This brings me to a slightly wider point about Probierz saying how he’s wanting to bring through a few names from the U-21s for these next internationals. I think most likely will be one of the defenders, but personally I’d like to see Jakub Kałuziński get a proper chance as holding midfield remains a bit of a question mark for Poland.
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