Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
With just over 24 hours to go until Poland kick off the first game of their October international break, and a few more stories and viewpoints have emerged since the last article penned earlier this week.
We know that this is the longest of the international breaks this autumn, and perhaps it’s because of that we’ve had so much more time to speak and read about the national team, and what various fans and pundits want and expect.
As already mentioned, the hype around Maxi Oyedele is close to fever-pitch, and whilst there is clearly hope he can be a transformative influence we should by the same token be measured.
I’ve already mentioned I enjoyed watching Oyedele in the youth teams, and looked forward to him getting a senior call-up when he was more established in senior football. Clearly, the belief Michał Probierz had in him as a youth player means that he has more or less been called up after only a couple of hundred (albeit very impressive) minutes on the pitch with Legia Warszawa, and this is obviously both a positive and negative.
It should have meant Oyedele would have had less pressure attached to his call-up, but he’s being talked about so much as a cast-iron solution to Poland’s dearth of holding midfielders that it might now be a difficult task however he plays tomorrow.
That is said as it seems pretty certain he will start against Portugal, given Probierz having talked Oyedele up all week and there is a very understandable hype around him which means fans and pundits want him to start.
Look, Oyedele alone will not fix all the problems of Poland’s midfield, but he will add some much needed balance and if that is achieved then he should remain a part of this squad for the foreseeable future. Even if he has a shaky game, we shouldn’t write him off given the scale of the task.
I’d also like to speak about the lack of clamour, or more accurately the almost disrespectful tone fans and pundits have towards certain other members of the squad. Looking at the striker options, there was some grumbling around the fact that Karol Świderski and Krzysztof Piątek weren’t exactly prolific at their clubs in the time between the last international break and when Probierz was gearing up to announce the squad for this break. This has since changed, with Świderski having scored four goals since the 29th of September and Piątek scoring twice in the first week of October.
Not exactly prolific numbers I grant you, but with Adam Buksa still sidelined with a calf issue and Arkadiusz Milik reportedly out until 2025, this is what we’re left with for better or worse. Świderski has great stats and performances for the national team, and whilst Piątek is not the player we thought he would be this time five years ago, he is a reliable workhorse of a striker.
So to see both mildly written off amidst the suggestion Poland should focus on playing with Robert Lewandowski as a sole striker does strike me as odd. Poland have played well under Probierz with both one lone forward and an attacking midfielder behind or with two up front, so all this sudden lack of enthusiasm for Świderski and Piątek seems to me to have come out of nowhere.
Let’s also speak about the everlasting meme-ing of Poland’s defensive options. Okay, Paweł Dawidowicz is perhaps slightly deserving of some of the withering opinions he invites, but I think at present time clearing house and booting him from the squad is a bit premature.
Realistically, Dawidowicz is an experienced professional and much as I would like Poland and Probierz to move on from him being a starter, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. Sebastian Walukiewicz and Kamil Piątkowski are younger and have started the season in strong individual form, and Walukiewicz was quietly impressive in the last international break. I can’t see Probierz ridding us of Dawidowicz just yet, but his comments about rotation and trying new faces might give us hope.
Again, Dawidowicz’s style of often over-aggressive defending does seem a little out of place with what Probierz is trying to achieve with his Poland set-up, so in any case I would argue (rightly or wrongly) his days starting are numbered.
Now if we move on to the perennial meme of Jan Bednarek. I’ll make no secret, I think Bednarek’s reputation is the absolute polar opposite to the quality of player he is. Sometimes I don’t understand what people want from Bednarek, given that he enjoys such harsh treatment from fans and pundits.
Bednarek seems to exist as “Schrödinger’s Defender”, simultaneously terrible with or without the ball and yet starting every game for Poland and in the Premier League for Southampton.
I really don’t get it, and it’s not like the stats back up these denigrating opinions either. Interestingly enough Bednarek has the highest pass completion percentage for his position in the Premier League, and when you consider that includes Virgil van Dijk, Ruben Dias and William Saliba that is nothing short of an incredible feat.
Sadly it is always the case in football and life that once you get a tag or a label, it is far easier to have that repeated ad infinitum than be recognised more accurately. Bednarek is routinely criticised for the smallest details and quite frankly it baffles me that he can still enjoy such a terrible reputation despite consistently strong displays.
After all of this discussion, what do I think the line-up for tomorrow night will look like? Well, perhaps something like below:
We’ve heard from reputable sources over these last few days that Skorupski and Oyedele are to start, and heard from Probierz himself that Sebastian Szymański is an injury doubt coming into the Portugal game. Therefore it would not surprise me to see Bartosz Kapustka in that box-to-box sort of role, he has after all been called-up for a reason. I would like to see either Walukiewicz or Piątkowski in for Dawidowicz, but I don't think this is likely.
Lastly, there has been a lot of agreeing with a comment by Lukas Podolski following his “farewell” game in Köln between the club from that city and Górnik Zabrze. Podolski speaks about his opinion that the last time Poland played good football was at Euro 2016, and that a lot of what defined that tournament’s run hasn’t been seen since.
Podolski is a legend, a man greatly admired by a lot of football fans, but I don’t agree with that opinion. Firstly I would like to caveat the following sentences by saying I am a man with a laptop and he is a World Cup winner, so his opinion is probably far closer to accurate than mine, but I still want to take this opportunity to disagree.
Yes, Poland played very well and achieved great results at Euro 2016. However, I think that the actual football being played, separate from results, was just as good under Paulo Sousa (at least a majority of the time) and has been great to watch the longer we’ve seen Poland under Michał Probierz.
I think a lot of us are rightly blinded by Euro 2016, how good it was as a combination of results and performances, but it would be disingenuous to say it was the last time Poland played good football. This does of course depend on your definition of good football, but for me good football is not dependent on good results. It helps, of course, but the two do not have to be interlinked.
Therefore I hope that tomorrow night we can see Poland attempt to play good football against Portugal, even if the result might not be. I’m confident that both good football and a good result can be achieved, even when compared to such strong opponents.
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