Poland aim to avoid Czech out

It is often said that a week is a long time in politics. The same goes for tournament football.

Only seven days ago, Poles held out little hope for their team’s chances of progressing beyond the group stage.

Their side’s stuttering 1-1 draw against Greece in the tournament’s opening match hardly helped to improve the public’s meek expectations.

All that anxiety however, has been irrevocably sidelined since last Tuesday night, when Franciszek Smuda’s young side stunned their kibice (fans) by playing a fast moving game of skilful football, packed with sheer determination against a classy Russian side in Warsaw. Poland outclassed the visitors for spells and probably deserved more than the final 1-1 draw.

Despite their pre-match reservations, Poles must have been expecting something special last Tuesday — 16.5 million of them tuned in to watch the match. Viewership figures for today’s decisive match against the Czechs are expected to be even higher.

Football fever has been sweeping across the country ever since, as daily paper Gazeta Wyborcza described it, captain Jakub Blaszycowski’s “missile” of a shot was fired into the Russian net.

Red and white flags flutter from car windows and drape from houses and apartments in cities, towns and villages. Try to think back to Italia 90 in Ireland and paint those images red and white, and you might just get a sense of the optimism on the streets. What on earth would they do if they actually won the tournament?

Today’s match against the Czech Republic in Wroclaw is a must-win situation for Poland. Taxi drivers, hotel staff, train ticket collectors and just about anyone you speak with has a prediction to offer.

Even my mother-in-law is watching the matches. “I think we will win 1-0. We must win,’’ said my taxi driver, a chap called Arkadiusz Karandysz, in Warsaw yesterday afternoon, who also commiserated with me on the Republic of Ireland’s early exit.

Everyone wants a repeat of Tuesday night’s heroics against Russia. “I never saw this team play like that before. It was like watching our team from the 1970s,’’ says Anna, a hostel manager from Poznan, referring to the country’s golden era of football when the likes of Grzegorz Lato and Kazimierz Deyna helped Poland to win 3rd place at both the 1974 and 1982 World Cups.

History probably had a hand in creating such a rousing performance against Russia last Tuesday. The fact that the match was being played on the east side of the Vistula — the very spot where Russian tanks stalled their advance in August 1944, whilst the beleaguered Polish Home Army slogged it out on their own against the Germans for nine solid weeks — was not lost on the home fans. Add to that the 1920 Battle of Warsaw and the previous 123 years of Russian imperial occupation and the scene was set for a duel of two old foes.

And, if that wasn’t enough, the sight of a large banner unfurled by Russian fans, emblazoned with the words ‘This is Russia’ was bound to get under the skin of Polish players and fans alike.

“I was sorry to see that a big Russian flag appeared, and yet there was no Polish flag,” said football commentator Tomasz Zimoch on Polish Radio, who encouraged Polish fans to sew their own huge flag for the Czech match. And, that’s exactly what they have done. UEFA have given permission for a vast 50 metre by 30 metre Polish flag to be unveiled by Polish fans in Wroclaw’s Municipal Stadium before the match kicks off.

Jakub ‘Kuba’ Blaszycowski, the team’s captain has become somewhat of a national hero since scoring that stunning equaliser against Russia in Warsaw. The Polish tabloid press are referring to the Borussia Dortmund winger as “the Master” and conservative newspaper Rzeczpospolita declared “Jakub Blaszczykowski has saved us”.

!Victory over the Czech Republic could hand Poland a mouth-watering quarter-final clash with Germany in Gdansk, which from a historical point of view, would be every bit as dramatic as last Tuesday’s battle in Warsaw.