Images via Mikolaj Barbanell/Shutterstock
The Polish national team is scheduled to play a friendly against Germany on June 16th, four days before they play Moldova in their next game in their qualifying campaign for Euro 2024. There’s been quite a lot of noise surrounding this fixture from pundits and fans, and not much of it positive.
Firstly, the good news. It had been rumoured for some time that the PZPN had been looking into a testimonial/farewell match for Jakub Błaszczykowski, and this friendly against Germany is set to be that game.
However, as soon as this game was announced there was an understandable backlash over high ticket prices, and it wasn’t long until we found out why: the PZPN allegedly paid €650k to the DfB for the privilege of playing against the German national side, and are clearly looking to recoup some of that record fee.
Adding to this irritated atmosphere was none other than Selekcjoner Fernando Santos, who seemed particularly displeased with the prospect of playing Germany. Santos was quoted as saying “if you were to ask me if I want to play this match, then no.” A few days later, he followed up on this by saying he doesn’t plan on fielding a strong team given the more important match is the qualifier against Moldova, which is completely understandable. Santos has also said that he doesn’t have a problem including Błaszczykowski in his squad for the match, which some pundits had been predicting could’ve been a bone of contention.
All in all, it seems like a lot of these issues could’ve been avoided. For example, if the match took place after the game against Moldova rather than before, you get the impression that Santos would be more onboard (he has inferred as much). Also, it strikes me as obvious that the PZPN would want Błaszczykowski’s farewell fixture to be against Germany, the country in which he made his name in club football. Therefore, could the two FAs not have come to an agreement earlier that didn’t result in the costs having to be partially absorbed in the ticket prices?
As I said, it could all have been avoided with better communication and then there wouldn’t have been this mini-furore over the cost of the tickets and Santos’ (fairly understandable) negativity.
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