Polish expectations remain modest

In Poland, football fans have an apt expression for their national side’s early exits from recent major football tournaments: Firstly, there is the opening match, secondly is the match for everything, and thirdly, the match for honour.

It may be a typical case of wry, self-deprecating Polish humour, but it also says a lot about Polish hopes for their side’s chances at Euro 2012.

Expectations for progressing beyond the group stage are low in a country that has not gone football mad since the glory days of Grzegorz Lato and co, when the country finished third at both the 1974 and 1982 World Cups. Football has fought an uphill battle in Poland for the last two decades — skiing, cycling and even volleyball seem more popular at times.

Polish coach Franciszek Smuda and his young squad — the second youngest at Euro 2012 after Germany — face a tough task to qualify from their group. This evening’s opening match against Greece promises to be a tight affair and Warsaw’s new national stadium must resemble a red and white cauldron of support for the home side. Most Poles would gladly accept Smuda’s pragmatic, harrying style of football in exchange for a narrow victory over a mundane Greek side.

Polish football pundits, however, doubt their team can edge out either a smart Russian side or a very competent Czech Republic and progress to the quarter-finals. Some even doubt that the team would have even qualified for the tournament had the country not been staging it — Poland is ranked 66th in FIFA’s world rankings, the lowest in the tournament.

Despite the fear of failure, over the next two weeks at least, Poles will get behind the Bialo-Czerwone (the White-Reds) in a big way for the first time in a generation. The players’ faces are everywhere — on vast city centre billboards, television adverts and on the front pages of the country’s broadsheets — even old ladies now know the names and faces of Robert Lewandowski and Jakub Blaszczykowski.

Most of all, Poles simply want Euro 2012 to be a success. Their government has invested too much into staging the tournament — an estimated €17bn on infrastructural projects alone — for it to be allowed to fail. Sure, people here would like their team to remain in the tournament until July 1, but a quarter-final place would be deemed a success.

The real victory for most people is to show to the rest of Europe and the watching world that Poland, isolated from its traditional western neighbours for decades, is a modern, vibrant country at the heart of the new Europe. After that is done, it will be harder to revert to the old stereotypes of the dreary East.

Smuda’s 4-2-3-1 formation has served the team well during a string of friendly performances over the past year, the highlight of which was a 2-1 win over Argentina last June.

Smuda is an experienced coach and former player — he wrapped up his playing days in the US playing for a number of sides in the 1970s, including the LA Aztecs. He has won three Polish league titles with his high pressure, physical style of play, something he has bestowed upon the Polish side since taking charge in 2010. However, he has allowed his most creative players — the likes of Obraniak, Blaszczykowski, Piszczek and Lewandowski — freedom to play.

The son of a WWII Polish Wehrmacht conscript, Smuda is viewed as an old style tactician. He once told reporters, when quizzed about using software to analyse match statistics, “I use a computer only when I need somewhere to put my coffee.”

In Wojciech Szczesny, the side has a young goalkeeper of pedigree and defensively the team concedes very few goals. However, injuries have hampered three of the team’s first choice defenders. French-born Damien Perquis (Sochaux) has recovered from an elbow injury in time for the tournament and right-back Marcin Wasilewski (Anderlecht) has lost a few yards of pace since a horrific leg break in 2009.

Sebastien Boenish (Werder Bremen), who missed 16 months of first team football with a serious knee injury, is back to full fitness and could replace the side’s only Ekstraklasa (Polish league) player, Legia Warszawa’s Jakub Wawrzyniak, in the back four against Greece.

The key to Smuda’s counter-attacking plans is right-back Lukasz Piszczek. One of three Borussia Dortmund players in the Polish side, his lighting pace will torment defences. A Polish scientist named Jan Chmura has tested Piszczek’s speed and claims the young right-back is faster over 30 metres than Usain Bolt.

And, according to Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Piszczek and captain Jakub Blaszczykowski played a part in setting up two-thirds of Borussia Dortmund’s goals last season — so Russian, Czech and Greek defences are bound to keep an eye on this right-sided partnership.

Captain Jakub ‘Kuba’ Blaszczykowski is the side’s sturdy right-winger, who with Lewandowski and Piszczek makes up the side’s Borussia Dortmund trio. ‘Kuba’, as he is known, missed out on both World Cup 2006 and Euro 2008 through injury so this will be his chance to play in a major tournament. A natural leader, the 27-year-old Blaszczykowski is a tough tackler and has a habit of drifting back to help out in defence. He played a key role in encouraging midfielder Eugen Polanski to opt for his Polish motherland instead of Germany.

Smuda has not been afraid to look to the Polish diaspora to improve the team’s pool of talent. Two French-born players — central defender Damien Perquis (Sochaux) and left-sided midfielder Ludowik Obraniak (Bordeaux) — both of whom have Polish grandfathers, have become stalwarts in the starting XI. Problematically, neither player speaks Polski at a communicative level.

Obraniak, first capped by former national coach Leo Beenhakker in 2009, has faced sharp criticism from some fan groups for not trying to learn the language over the past three years. The Bordeaux midfielder’s fiercest critic however, is Lewandowski. Last October, the Dortmund star striker told reporters: “He (Obraniak) should not wear the eagle on his chest if he doesn’t understand Polish.” A silent conflict has brewed between the pair ever since.

The manager has also capped Polish-born German citizens. Sebastian Boenisch (Werder Bremen), central midfielder Adam Matuszczyk (Fortuna Dusseldorf) and midfielder Eugen Polanski (Mainz 05) — all born in Poland but raised in Germany — are first-choice players. With Polish, French and German being spoken in the dressing room, the Polish side is possibly the most linguistically diverse side at Euro 2012.

However it is Lewandowski on whose shoulders rests the hopes of a nation. The 23-year-old Borussia Dortmund striker was voted the Bundesliga Player of the Year last season. His tally of 30 goals in all competitions — every one from play — helped Borussia to secure the league title and his hat-trick against Bayern Munich in the German Cup final secured a famous double for the club.

Playing as a lone striker just in front of Polanksi, Obraniak and Blaszczykowski, it will be critical that Lewandowski receives good service from the flanks — the source of most of his goals. His international form has been impressive too, scoring 14 goals in 42 appearances to-date.

A shy individual, he can also court controversy at times. Last year, he gave an interview to a Polish sports magazine in which he criticised Smuda’s tactics. He also criticised his manager’s policy of seeking to lure non-Polish speaking members of the diaspora to play for the national side.

Hard to believe now, but this 6ft tall striker’s childhood nickname was ‘Bobek’ meaning ‘very little’ due to his small and thin build. Born in 1988 in the town of Leszno, 30km outside of Warsaw, his family could not afford his trainee fees of €35 a month at Legia Warszawa, the capital’s main club. Instead, the family sent him to local minnows Varsovia, which offered cheaper rates for youngsters. Legia did sign him as an apprentice, however at the age of 17, paying him €250 a month, which made young Robert the family breadwinner after the death of his father.

Lewandowski’s time at Legia was short lived, however, and he was released after a season to second division outfit, Znicz Pruskow. From there, he was signed by top-flight side Lech Poznan where he impressed with 32 goals in two seasons. Borussia Dortmund snapped him up soon after in 2010.

Interestingly, Smuda has not always rated Lewandowski. While playing with Znicz Pruskow as a 19-year-old, a Lech Poznan scout phoned Smuda — then manager of Lech Poznan — and told him that he must come to Warsaw and watch this tall, talented striker called Lewandowski in action. Smuda was reportedly so unimpressed with the youngster that he asked the club’s scout to refund him his petrol money back to Poznan.

This evening against Greece, Smuda will look to Lewandowski to step on the gas.