Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
The news came through yesterday afternoon that Fernando Santos had officially agreed to a “mutual termination” of his contract as Selekcjoner of the Polish national team. To mark the end of what has been an eight-month reign, which has been uncomfortable to watch both on and off the pitch, I thought I’d write down my thoughts about how it has been, from hiring through firing and who might be coming next.
Where to begin? The start is generally accepted to be a good place, so there we are. I wrote back when Czesław Michniewicz’s time was coming to an end that the most popular options amongst fans were names like Herve Renard and Marcelo Bielsa, even if these weren’t particularly realistic. More realistic was the idea that someone like Jan Urban or Michał Probierz might take over, but that seemed deeply unambitious, a trait the PZPN under Cezary Kulesza had been worryingly displaying.
Marek Papszun and Maciej Skorża were probably the most popular choices were Kulesza to appoint a Polish coach, but it was acknowledged that neither option was wholly suitable. Papszun was fairly strong in his statements at the time that he was staying with Raków Częstochowa, and Skorża had just taken over at Urawa Red Diamonds in Japan. It does rankle a little bit that Papszun would announce less than five months later that he was stepping down at Raków, but I’ll expand on that later.
Then, a shortlist was supposedly drawn up which involved the names of Paulo Bento, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Santos. Allegedly, Kulesza contacted Bento first but baulked at the salary requirements, causing him to contact his second choice of Santos. Despite the rumours that he was headed for retirement, Santos accepted a “last-minute” offer of a sizeable contract from the PZPN, guaranteeing him the job until Euro 2024 and likely beyond, given the relative ease of Poland’s qualifying group (advancement to the tournament in Germany would’ve triggered an automatic extension according to reports).
There was some consternation that having just got rid of a manager in Michniewicz who played dull, defensive football, that the PZPN had hired someone in Santos who was of a similar reputation in terms of style, but this was countered by the acknowledgement that he did have experience of winning a major international tournament in the relatively recent past and that experience would likely count for a lot. Or so the thinking went, anyway.
At this point, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the last time Poland had a Portuguese coach with Paulo Sousa, it was really great to watch, the results were decent and young players were brought through. Initially, Santos spoke of wanting similar from his time in charge, and the first few months before he’d actually taken charge of a game seemed a cause for optimism. He spoke of needing to dominate possession, and how important it would be to bring younger players into the national side.
Indeed, part of the remit for Santos was that, with what looked like a straightforward qualifying group, he could try and finish what Sousa started and Michniewicz stalled in regard to bringing through the younger players.
I for one was very pleased to see Santos’ first squad for this initial qualifiers against Czechia and Albania in March, as it seemed he wasn’t merely talking, he was appointing young players and mostly creative ones at that. Of course, this optimism was for many short-lived after the 3-1 defeat in Prague, but I still maintain that there were huge amounts of overreaction, given it was clearly Poland’s hardest game of the group and the first game for a new manager. The next game against Albania was better, and it was a match Poland looked in charge of, even if a big chance went begging for the visitors at the death.
It was really the next international break where the negativity started. Santos had an unenthusiastic, and some would say disrespectful attitude to Jakub Błaszczykowski’s farewell match against Germany this past June, complaining that he would rather have played a team more in keeping with preparing for their next qualifier against Moldova and allegedly had to be forced into calling-up Błaszczykowski for his own send-off.
In the end, that Germany game was probably the best Poland performance for the whole of Santos’ tenure. The next game against Moldova, whilst not the worst performance, was certainly the most embarrassing result. To collapse like they did was hard to watch, but still for me personally alarm bells didn’t really start to ring until after the final whistle, when Santos said he had never seen anything like it. He’d said the same thing after Poland were blown away in the first three minutes in Prague, and at this point the attitude was starting to prevail that perhaps Santos was starting to care less and less about the task with which he was entrusted and that he was doing little to ensure the players weren't just coasting.
With the international break just gone, the atmosphere was pretty horrendously negative. Of course, part of this is to do with the Moldova result hanging heavy and much of the build-up revolved around the suggestion if there were any negatives to Poland’s next two games Santos would be removed as Selekcjoner. Then, the other half of the build-up focused on Robert Lewandowski’s big interview on the eve of the break, when he said a number of things which hardly suggested we were going to be having a great time watching Poland.
For the purpose of balance here, Lewandowski’s interview was largely the sort of interview you often see players agree to on the basis that it can make some uncomfortable truths more loudly heard, but misjudge it and you invite moronic suggestions. Moronic suggestions like that of the bloke who phoned up Meczyki on Monday night, which in case you missed it, had this chap suggest that Lewandowski should retire from international football and hand over the captaincy to Kamil Grabara (a fourth-choice goalkeeper). When it comes to Lewandowski, everyone seems to lose perspective, but that's a conversation for another time.
Santos hardly helped with what seemed to be disrespect and disinterest, particularly with his body language. His selections also smacked of panic, given that after the defeat to Moldova there was much whataboutism when it came to the experience on the pitch, and this pressure clearly got to him when calling-up Grzegorz Krychowiak and Kamil Grosicki. Krychowiak has pretty much sunk without trace since Michniewicz got sacked, and the time to call-up Grosicki was probably in March or June when he was actually playing very well, as opposed to the lukewarm start he has had to this Ekstraklasa season.
The match against the Faroe Islands was far more hard-fought that any of us were expecting, and the football looked as timid as it ever had. Krychowiak wasn’t horrendous but there was certainly no need to play him again three days later in another must-win away in Tirana, a game which goes down as one of the worst performances I’ve seen Poland put in, possibly only rivalled by the spectacle of watching the footballing equivalent of an armadillo retreat into its shell during the World Cup game against Argentina.
We knew the moment the final whistle went against Albania last Sunday that Santos wouldn’t see out the week. Given the contract he had, it was understandably a complex task to get him out of it without acrimony, but most of this could’ve been solved by Kulesza not being so indecisive in January. Indeed, the president of the PZPN has only been there two years but is running an operation far less professional and much less successful than his predecessor. Zbigniew Boniek’s time in charge of the association was not without mistakes but the positives outweighed the negatives far more than has been the case under Kulesza’s leadership.
Then we come to who Santos’ replacement will be. Papszun is the overwhelming popular choice, and unlike last time hasn’t ruled himself out of the running yet. If it is to be a Polish coach, which the thinking certainly is, it has to be the best available and that’s Papszun. Skorża is probably a close second, although he probably isn’t going to be tempted away from his post in Japan, at least not yet anyway, so Papszun would be the most progressive choice for Poland in my opinion.
However, reports are that Kulesza is currently most likely to appoint Michał Probierz, who despite very decent work with the U-21s is still a very Michniewicz-type choice, in that it will be divisive and battle lines will be drawn. Other names floating about are Marcin Brosz, currently heading up the U-19s, Jan Urban (again) and everyone’s favourite old-school choice in Adam Nawałka in the hope that some of that Euro 2016-era magic can be revived.
For what it’s worth, Papszun is by far the best choice but given his straight-talking approach Kulesza will likely not have the courage to appoint him, and some of the players might well take against him. I personally think that’s a risk the PZPN need to be willing to take, given almost any Polish coach will be under the microscope and have certain issues when it comes to divisiveness amongst the public and the players, you just have to make sure it’s someone whose coaching talent outweighs their divisiveness.
Where I despair slightly is that a more competent president of the PZPN might well have had advance information that Papszun was going to leave Raków this summer, and appointed a caretaker until Papszun wanted to take over the reigns. Someone like Nawałka, for example.
As it is, whoever is appointed is likely to get a short-term deal up to (and hopefully if qualification is achieved including) Euro 2024, before they look for someone to lead Poland into World Cup qualifying. Sadly, I can’t see Papszun willing to take such a risk at this moment in time, which leads us back into a whole other conversation about who the next best available choice is.
The PZPN are set to meet again in less than a week to finalise their decision of who to appoint, and call-ups for the next international break are needed by the end of September. Whoever it is will need to act fast, and hopefully qualification to Euro 2024 through the play-offs might still happen.
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