Leo Beenhakker has announced the list of players for the match with USA on 26th March 2008. The list of players who will go to EURO 2008 is going to be announced right after this match, so we could expect not many changes. Although:

"This is the squad only for the match with USA, we are not closing the door for anyone. The list is not set in stone." - said Dariusz Dziekanowski, Leo Beenhakker's assistant.

But my personal feeling is that changes in this list are going to be done only in the case of injury.

Goalkeepers: Artur Boruc (Celtic Glasgow), Tomasz Kuszczak (Manchester United), Lukasz Fabianski (Arsenal)

No surprises. Artur Boruc's position in the squad is inarguable and these three are simply the best Polish goalkeepers, despite Kuszczak and Fabianski being only reserve goalkeepers in their teams.

Defenders: Marcin Wasilewski (Anderlecht Brussels), Pawel Golanski (Steaua Bucuresti), Mariusz Jop (FK Moscow), Jacek Bak (Austria Wien), Michal Zewlakow (Olympiakos Pireus), Grzegorz Bronowicki (Crvena Zvezda Belgrad), Arkadiusz Radomski (Austria Wien), Marcin Kus (Kolporter Korona Kielce), Adam Kokoszka (Wisla Krakow), Jakub Wawrzyniak (Legia Warszawa)

Arkadiusz Radomski being in the conflict with his coach, will not be able to practice before EURO. But in the past, he and Jacek Bak they were forming our best defense block. I'm also looking forward to see some goals scores by Adam Kokoszka - this guy can be the real threat for unsuspecting opponents. Marcin Kus, Adam Kokoszka and Jakub Wawrzyniak got really big chance to prove themselves worthy in Polish national team.

Midfielders: Mariusz Lewandowski (Shakhtar Donetsk), Dariusz Dudka (Wisla Krakow), Rafał Murawski (Lech Poznan), Michal Pazdan (Gornik Zabrze), Michal Golinski (Zaglebie Lubin), Jakub Blaszczykowski (Borussia Dortmund), Wojciech Lobodzinski (Wisla Krakow), Lukasz Gargula (PGE GKS Belchatow), Jacek Krzynowek (VfL Wolfsburg), Radoslaw Majewski (Groclin Dyskobolia Grodzisk Wlkp.)

Leo Beenhakker has tested many midfielders in the last 6 month, so I'm sure that he has chosen the best of them.

Strikers: Tomasz Zahorski (Gornik Zabrze), Maciej Zurawski (AE Larissa), Euzebiusz Smolarek (Racing Santander), Lukasz Piszczek (Hertha Berlin), Radoslaw Matusiak (Wisla Krakow), Pawel Brozek (Wisla Krakow), Dawid Janczyk (CSKA Moscow).

The most surprising name: Dawid Janczyk. 19 years-old reserve player of CSKA Moscow doesn't seem like having enough experience to be in the squad for European Championships, but we'll see in June.

Several names are missing on this list, mostly Ireneusz Jelen (Auxerre), Artur Wichniarek (Arminia Bielefeld) and Marek Saganowski (Southampton). One of our biggest problems is the lack of classic centre striker and any of these guys could play really well on this position.

Alltogether this squad looks really well and I can't wait to see them in action

So... 84 days left to EURO 2008 and Polish national team loses 2-3 to the team made from foreign players playing in Orange Ekstraklasa. Nothing to be happy about.

For Leo Beenhakker's excuse, the team wasn't actually Polish national team, at least not in the sense of EURO 2008 - from the first squad we could see Jacek Krzynowek, Tomasz Zahorski and Jakub Wawrzyniak. It was a team made from players playing in Polish teams (+Jacek Krzynowek and Lukasz Piszczek). In spite of that, it was clear that the foreigners outclass Polish players technically.

The problem is also (as I've been already writing before) the fact, that key players in possible Polish squad for EURO are not playing in their teams. Jacek Krzynowek and Lukasz Piszczek were playing in this match simply because they haven't played in their teams for weeks. Said that, I can't ignore the form of Krzynowek - even if he's not good enough for his club coach, he's still really good player and he's going to be natural Polish leader in upcoming European Championships.

One of the players, who were really disappointing in this match was Roger - Brazilian player from Legia Warszawa, who is the "hero" of the national debate about giving Polish citizenship to foreing players. He didn't show anything in this match, that would give Leo Beenhakker a reason to actually give him a place in the squad.

Match Info:

Poland: Wojciech Kowalewski (66. Sebastian Przyrowski) - Marcin Kus, Grzegorz Bartczak (66. Adam Danch), Jakub Wawrzyniak, Mariusz Magiera (46. Piotr Kuklis); Michal Pazdan (46. Michal Golinski), Rafal Murawski (40. Lukasz Gargula), Jacek Krzynowek, Robert Kolendowicz (46. Grzegorz Baran); Tomasz Zahorski (46. Grzegorz Bonin), Lukasz Piszczek (66. Radosław Majewski)

Foreigners: Emilian Dolha (46. Jan Mucha) - Radek Mynar (46. Stefano Napoleoni); Pance Kumbev (46. Hernani), Sreten Sretenovic (46. Ivan Djurdjevic), Manuel Arboleda; Miroslav Radovic (46. Edi Andradina), Aleksandar Vukovic (46. Roger Guerreiro), Hermes (46. Inaki Astiz), Edson da Silva (46. Mauro Cantoro); Ilijan Micanski (46. Vuk Sotirovic), Filip Ivanovski (46. Takesure Chinyama)

Goals: Lukasz Gargula (74.), Jakub Wawrzyniak (89.); Arboleda (1.), Ivanovski (40.), Chinyama (78.)

Cards: Marcin Kus - yellow, Arboleda - yellow

Michal Listkiewicz - the president of Polish Football Association said in the interview with Gazeta Wyborcza that Polish Football Association and Legia Warsaw do everything they can to get Polish citizenship for Legia's player - Roger. This Brazilian player supposedly has been noticed by Polish coach - Leo Beenhakker and another rumour states that he would be playing in Polish national team on Euro 2008!

Personally, I have nothing against foreign players playing in Polish national team. On World Cup 2002 in Korea and Japan our main striker was Olisadebe who got Polish citizenship also basically to be able to play in Polish national team. Some people claim that the difference between these two players is significant: Olisadebe had married the Polish girl and he was the lead player in WC 2002 qualifications. He was dedicated to get Polish citizenship, because he felt as being a Pole. Roger, on the other hand, doesn't seem like becoming a Polish citizen would be his dream. I don't want to make any conjectures, but I think that he wouldn't have a slightest chance to play in Brazilian national team, so maybe (maybe!) he's trying to become a part of the national team of the country he's playing in. Although another rumour is that it was directly Leo Beenhakker's idea to include Roger in our team on Euro 2008.

While I don't have anything against foreign players playing in Polish national team, I'm strongly against giving someone the citizenship only to allow him to play in the national team. If someone doesn't feel like a citizen, he shouldn't get the citizenship, right?

Or am I wrong? What are your thoughts in this subject?

Today Poland played against Estonia. Leo Beenhakker continues testing of the players playing in Orange Ekstraklasa and as he has the unique ability to find out new football talents, we could see the whole new group of players.

None of the Polish players in this match had played more than 12 matches in Polish national team and some of them were completely unknown.

The match started with good oportunity to score in 2. minute after free-kick of Michal Golinski, but the ball hit the post.

In 11. minute Kamil Grosicki passed the ball to Radoslaw Matusiak, but Pavel Landak - Estonian goalkeeper was faster. He has shown again that he's the most active player of Estonian team again in 20. minute when he blocked Matusiak again.

Estonians started to do actually something on the field after about 25 minutes of the play. Two shoots on Polish goal were defended by Groclin goalkeeper - Sebastian Przyrowski.

In 38. Radoslaw Matusiak scored the first goal for Polish team after corner kick by Lukasz Gargula. These two guys know each other really well and they always show it on the field. Too bad for Wisla Krakow, that they didn't try more to get Gargula in this transfer window.

The second half of the match started with another good oportunity for Polish team, but the good centre by Tomasz Lisowski was missed by few inches by Grosicki.

In 63. minute Leo Beenhakker did several changes - Pawelec, Zienczuk, Grosicki and Gargula were substituted by Kuklis, Zahorski, Golos and Majewski. Tomasz Zahorski has scored second goal in 72. minute after another corner kick.

During the last 10 minutes of the match Polish national team was playing with only 10 players - Radoslaw Matusiak has been injuried in 80. minute and Leo Beenhakker had used all of available substitutions. It didn't prevent Polish team from securing the score and the match has ended with Polish victory 2:0.

It was the third victory in a row after wins over Findland (1:0) and Czech republic (2:0) this year. Although Estonia is just 125. in FIFA ranking (while Poland is currently 20.), another Polish victory is good sign before EURO 2008. It looks like Leo Beenhakker has his idea of the national team and (what's more important) he knows how to share this idea with Polish players.

Let's hope that this idea won't just end on group stage on Euro 2008...

"(...) this couldn't have come at a better time for us, he is pretty much their key player in euro and he is a very good striker, he would have caused us some serious problems, so i see this as a good thing for us."

This comment about Eduardo's injury makes me feel ashamed for being from Poland. Unfortunately this is very popular approach: we support a team, so we would like to see them winning regardless of costs. In the need for victories we forget about fair play.

Actually is there any fair play left? Even really nice custom of kicking the ball outside the field when the opposing player was injuried was twisted, so that now teams demand it when one of their players is laying (and lying) on the grass faking.

Back to Eduardo, Croatia and Polish... fans? Do you think that guys with such attitude can be called "fans"?

Since the last FIFA ranking Poland has been promoted by three places and currently is on 20. position.

First nine places are without changes. We can see a lot of movements of African teams after recently finished Africa Cup of Nations. The bronze-medallist Ghana has been promoted from 43. position to 19.

From Polish rivals in UEFA EURO Cup 2008 ranked the highest is Germany - 5th position. Croatia is 12th and Austria - 84th.

FIFA ranking for 13th February 2008 (in brackets previous position):

I said that I'm going to write something more about TVP in regards of Polish football national team, but another topic interested me lately - Polish goalkeepers.

Currently Poland is in the middle of big national discussion about who should and who should not go to EURO 2008. From all Polish players playing in top world leagues, our goalkeepers have the strongest position in their teams, therefore the biggest part of this discussion is focused on them.

Who do we have to choose from?

Artur Boruc - Celtic Glasgow
Currently number 1 in Polish national team. He did really well in World Cup 2006 (he was one of few Polish players we didn't have to be ashamed for, to be more precise) and right now it seems that he's in his top form. I would be really surprised if he wasn't chosen by Leo Beenhakker.

Tomasz Kuszczak - Manchester United.
He is a substitute of Edwin van der Sar and actually doesn't play much. He is also the "most controversial" player in the Polish national team - the debate is now mostly about him. Some people say that playing in MU means that you're good enough to be in national team, others say that one needs to play, not to be a substitute...

Lukasz Fabianski - Arsenal London
He plays even less than Kuszczak and unlike the other, he didn't have chance to play in Champions League. Arsene Wegner makes him a goalkeeper only in unimportant matches.

Jerzy Dudek - Real Madrid
Another substitute player, his time is slowly going to end, although everyone still can remember his superb performance in Champions League final Liverpool vs. AC Milan. He is also still good enough for one of the strongest teams in the world. I don't think he will find his place in Polish national team on EURO 2008, though.

Wojciech Kowalewski - Korona Kielce
He was the goalkeeper of Spartak Moscow for the last 4 years, but (again!) he was sitting on the bench most of the time. Right now he moved to Polish team Korona Kielce to prove that he's good enough to be taken to EURO.

Five really good goalkeepers, only three of them will go to EURO. Right now it seems that the three will be Boruc, Fabianski and Kowalewski or Boruc, Fabianski and Kuszczak.

Polish public television (TVP) and commercial TV station (Polsat) still haven't agreed on the terms of showing EURO 2008 matches in TVP.

Polsat is the transmission rights owner for Poland, which it had bought for 15 millions euro. It was agreed that TVP will buy rights to show 16 from 31 matches (including all Polish matches, the opening match and the final) for 9 millions euro. All of the matches would be independently shown on Digital Polsat - paid, encrypted channels of Polsat.

All was agreed, but no one from TVP has shown up on the meeting with certifying notary to sign the agreement. They suddenly changed their offer to be 25% lower.

The owner of Polsat - Zygmut Solorz-Zak said:

"We are not going to negotiate with TVP any longer. EURO 2008 matches will be shown only on our channels. Their time is up. Fans should not blame us, only TVP for not wanting to participate in such big event as EURO 2008".

TVP sport director, former world champion in race walking - Robert Korzeniowski still is optimistic:

"There still is time for negotations. We have a lot of good will"

You know what's the most funny thing? TVP is actually payable - every single household in Poland has to pay about 7 USD per month for having a TV set! It doesn't matter if you use cable TV (which is paid separately), it doesn't matter if you use your TV set only for watching movies from VCR/DVD - you still have to pay. Isn't it nice? ;)

In 2006 the income of TVP from this licence fee was over 210 million USD. And they claim, they don't have money to buy rights to show EURO 2008 in the first place and now to buy sublicence to show selected matches.

Tomorrow I will say a little more about football matches in TVP. Stay tuned :)

Friendly match has just ended. Poland won 2-0 after goals of Wojciech Lobodzinski (6.) and Mariusz Lewandowski (29.) which, in my personal opinion, was really bad.

I'm not talking about the performance - it's nice that Poland wins with sixth team of the world (even if with their second squad), but the problem is about Polish mentality. This "success" (again, I'm not denying the score - we have won with Czech Republic, sixth team of the world and I'm really happy about that) is going to be memorized and analyzed until EURO 2008 and the expectations are going to be really, REALLY, high (as always, to be honest). I've just checked Polish sport pages - they all say "If we've won with Czech Republic, why not with Germany?". Why not? Because we have only Artur Boruc who is playing in the first squad in strong (still not top-class, but strong enough) team. The rest either sit on the substitution bench, or they struggle in average teams in average leagues.

And one Leo Beenhakker is not going to change that...