Poland: trying to repeat old achievements with a new attacking recipe

Apart from the German hosts, no other team is happier that the FIFA World Cup is being held in Germany than Poland, whose national team celebrated their biggest achievements in the neighbouring country to the west. The Poles won the gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games and two years later, the Polish team finished third in the World Cup after beating the Brazilians 1-0. The side which included Kazimierz Deyna and Grzegorz Lato – the 1974 Golden Boot winner with seven goals – came mighty close to reaching the “main” final. But the Bayern Munich goalkeeper Sepp Maier stood between them and greater things in the decisive 1-0 defeat – a legendary match played on a waterlogged Frankfurt pitch – at the second group stage.

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When Poland again qualified early for the World Cup in September 2005, the joy was therefore somewhat subdued. “Many people can still remember 2002,” said Tomasz Waldoch. The Schalke 04 defender no longer plays a role in the national side as does team-mate Tomasz Hajto.

The qualifying competition for the 2004 European Championships in Portugal also went in much the same disappointing way for the Poles as the World Cup  did previously. A dejected Zbigniew Boniek, the former world class player, stepped down from his position as national coach with the preliminaries still in progress. Pawel Janas took over the job. But he was unable to lead his team to the finals in Portugal due to the bad position he found himself in at the start of his reign. Janas used the competitive games and friendlies in order to do a lot of experimenting. He swapped his players around and altered the philosophy. Just like his German counterpart, Jürgen Klinsmann, he focused on an attacking game and wanted to get away from a primarily combative style of play. The Polish team showed that they had understood the coach during World Cup qualifying. In scoring 27 times, Janas’ side netted 10 more goals than the English who headed the group at the final reckoning.

Maciej Zurawski and Tomas Frankowski accounted for more than half of the 27 goals. Zurawski is one of the national team’s many players that turned out for Wisla Cracow. Janas thinks very highly of the Wisla academy. Prior to the World Cup season, the centre forward moved to Celtic in the Scottish Premier League. Other attacking players also earn their wages abroad in the meantime. There’s injury prone Olisadebe (Panathinaikos), Frankowski (Elche/Spain), Grezegorz Rasiak (Tottenham). Euzebiusz Smolarek, who plays up front for Borussia Dortmund and who had a glittering start to the 2005/6 season when scoring eight goals in nine games, is usually given a midfield role by Janas. The strings are pulled in the middle of the park by Jacek Krzynowek (Bayer Leverkusen), another player from the German Bundesliga. Kamil Kosowski, currently at Southampton, previously had a rather unfortunate spell at Kaiserslautern.

The Poles won eight of their ten World Cup 2006 qualifying matches. As the defeated teams, namely Northern Ireland, Wales, Austria and Azerbaijan, do not exactly belong to Europe’s best, the “white eagles” are unsure as to where they stand at the moment. Especially as both encounters with the top team England ended in 2-1 defeats. The Poles are therefore not sure as to what to expect at the World Cup. But they do know that they will be playing in Germany. It will at least give them a good feeling due to their achievements in 1972 and 1974 and due to the expected support from the Polish fans.