Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
Slightly provocative as a headline, I grant you, but the simple truth is that when Michał Probierz announced this squad just over a week or so ago there was considerable consternation.
Most of the disquiet focused around omissions, namely why Mateusz Bogusz was not trusted again given he only got a fairly brief chance to impress in what was a lacklustre team performance against Croatia.
Indeed, the omissions of Bogusz and Bartosz Slisz seemed even more of a shock than including Bartosz Kapustka for the first time in eight years, or the inexperienced Maxi Oyedele.
I wrote when the squad was announced that much as I am a huge fan of Oyedele from his time in youth football, I was worried that a senior call-up might’ve been too much too soon. Pleasingly it feels like everyone in the Polish media has gone into Oyedele overdrive since his call-up and especially since his tremendous performance in Legia Warszawa’s Europa Conference victory over Real Betis.
Probierz has made comments suggesting that Oyedele will feature heavily in these next two Nations League ties, which makes sense. Given that Jakub Moder is still not playing regular football and experimenting with Piotr Zieliński as the deeper midfielder left Poland’s centre-backs woefully exposed in transition against Croatia, a proper holding midfielder in Oyedele is very welcome. Sure, it’s a step up for the 19 year-old, but it’s one he would’ve made sooner or later and given the good form he hopefully carries into the international break, there is no better time.
Kapustka is likely to get some minutes here or there as well given Probierz’s comments, and the footballing romantic in me hopes that after such a long break and such hardship in his career he can at least hold his own should he get playing time.
Those press comments from Probierz which confirm rotation in the next games have been slightly blown out of proportion in my view. Realistically, the Nations League is the time to experiment. I think based on the narrow win over Scotland and the disappointingly open loss to Croatia last time out, in which Poland were lucky not to concede more than just the one goal, it was clear that the promise of the first half of the year and the admirable efforts of the Euros could not be rested upon.
A desire to make change for change’s sake is often a mistake, but in this case a few little tweaks might bring pleasant surprises. A more balanced midfield would almost be guaranteed to include Oyedele, and I hope to see him as well as even more chopping and changing as promised by Probierz. After all, we’ll never find out if some of these players have a future in the national team if they don’t play, and realistically there is no better time than now to give it a try.
Say that Poland lose to both Portugal and Croatia. Defeatist, I know, but they are the two strongest teams in the Nations League group and perhaps defeat would arrive even with Poland’s strongest eleven players starting. So really there’s not a huge amount at stake, certainly not compared to the November break, where you hope Poland might see off Scotland a second time and qualify for the relegation play-off or sneak into the next round. That’s my opinion anyway, given that the Nations League is only really one step up from friendlies, even if I like the fact the games have more value now.
Moving aside from those topics for a moment, I wanted to speak about other happenings in and around the Poland squad, namely the injury omissions recently announced as well as the ongoing circuses around Kamil Grabara and Matty Cash not getting a look in.
First up, I’m really sad that Kacper Kozłowski had to pull out through injury, again. I’m a big fan of him, and the way he turned the last U-21 game on it’s head made me realise he is the ideal back-up for the blossoming Kacper Urbański, given the potential similarity of their roles. I really hope that he gets called-up again in November, given the stop-start nature of his career since he was last seen on the pitch for the senior side.
Mateusz Skrzypczak and Bartłomiej Drągowski missing through injury, and the subsequent inclusion of Kacper Trelowski as third/fourth choice goalkeeper is a nice moment for him, but otherwise a little bit of a non-story.
However, there is an attempt to be sour on Trelowski’s emergency call-up given the ongoing talk around Kamil Grabara. Now a starting goalkeeper in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg, he is starting to reach the heights we thought he might. This has led to some deliberately obtuse comments from pundits taking potshots at Probierz and the coaching staff, “how can Grabara not be in the top five goalkeepers”, etc, etc.
Truth is we know Grabara does not want to be called-up unless he is first or second-choice, given the massive ego on the man. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as a lot of top players are strong personalities and have high opinions of themselves, but let’s not kid ourselves that Grabara would be content to sit as a back-up to Łukasz Skorupski or Marcin Bułka. Who knows what would happen if Wojciech Szczęsny decides he fancies coming out of international retirement, then we’d have a giant problem with loads of potential fallout which so far has been well-avoided by Probierz and the coaching staff.
The same is kind of true around Matty Cash. On balance it was the right decision not to take him to Euro 2024, or call him up given he’s only just back to fitness now. A conveniently big interview with Cash was done with Kanał Sportowy on the eve of this international break, saying he hopes he can play for Poland again soon and that there is little contact between himself and Probierz, particularly the fact he found out he wasn’t going to Euro 2024 through the Polish press.
It was a pretty wide-ranging interview, and one in which we didn't learn a huge deal more about Cash's situation more than we already did, especially in terms of his lack of speaking Polish. Some people are understandably feeling slighted by this, but I do think that Cash is genuine in his desire to play for Poland despite his reticence to learn even the most basic Polish.
To be honest, even if we acknowledge that Cash has been a bit disappointing every time he’s played for Poland since the last World Cup, he’s hardly been helped by the fact that in that timeframe he has had recurring injuries as well as other players in better form, for the national team at least. These are not excuses, merely mitigating factors that are part of the reason we don’t see the same kind of displays at international level as we do at club level from Cash.
Good news is we’ve seen Probierz is not a man to write players off, so there is a very real chance Cash could be back in a Poland shirt as early as November, but Cash should be careful not to burn any bridges as some of his responses in that interview do seem an attempt to get himself back in the Polish squad or go down swinging. Cash has said before that under Jerzy Brzęczek he wasn’t taken into consideration, but Paulo Sousa was keen on him and thus he switched nationalities.
I do slightly worry that in the time since Probierz has taken charge, maybe Cash feels his lack of speaking the language and the other factors Brzęczek cited are also present in Probierz’s attitude towards him.
Of course, this is all speculation and projection and as ever, it’s all my opinion. It does feel however that we stray further and further from seeing Matty Cash play for Poland again every international break, given he’s either not called-up or he’s injured, or even that he gets injured whilst turning out for the national team.
I hope this isn’t the case and as I briefly said I don’t think it is the case. It might be salient however for Cash and Probierz to tackle his lack of selection sooner or later otherwise we might get more of these big interviews with slightly inflammatory answers. There were some typically leading questions from Mateusz Borek, which didn't help in that regard, but I don't see Cash's attitude towards Poland as a purely self-serving one.
Regardless of all the noise around inclusions, exclusions, team selection and even the potential of the PZPN building a national training centre, this does seem an international break with more headlines than ever around Poland.
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