Sparring match on Cyprus
Monday, 04 February 08, 09:00 PM
It seems that Leo Beenhakker has really good influence on Polish players. Their performance during the sparring match with Finland was amazingly good and we could see some "fresh blood" in Polish lineup.
At the beginning of the match we could see some nerves and misunderstandings in Polish defence lines (it wasn't surprising - the goalkeeper, Sebastian Przyrowski, and four defence players altogether played 18 matches in national team so far). But after two wasted Finnish score opportunities, Polish goal was safe and sound for the rest of the match.
Adam Kokoszka, defender, was Polish captain in this match, although his first match in the national team was just one year ago and he doesn't play in his club team. In this sparring match he could prove that he is worthy wearing the captain's badge - he scored the only goal in this match (in 42. minute), and in the second half he could raise the score, but on of the Fins kicked the ball out right from the goal line.
Not too bad for a defender.
Another good player in this match was Kamil Grosicki. Player struggling with his personal problems (he was gambling addicted) said that "Leo Beenhakker has pulled him to the bright side of the moon".
Very good performance we could also observe by Radoslaw Majewski, Wojciech Lobodzinski, Jakub Wawrzyniak and Tomasz Zahorski. On the other hand, Leo Beenhakker should think seriously, whether he should give more chances to Pawel Brozek, Michal Golinski and Marek Zienczuk. These guys were the weakest link of the whole team.
The next match of Polish team is the friendly match with Czech Republic on Wednesday.
Like this blog? Help spread the word:
There's a Wisla Krakow player called Jacob Burns who might come off the bench for Australia tonight. I used to watch him in the National Soccer League and he was pretty terrible - I can only imagine the Ekstraklasa has miraculously improved his game significantly.
There was another guy who played for Wisla but who just signed for SK Brann in Norway. He came all the way down for the match in Melbourne only for the coach to take one look at him and declare that Queensland's Craig Moore would play instead because "he was so much better." Ouch!
4 Comments
Great post, VeyDer.
How are Poles feeling about Euro 2008? Do you think Poland can get out of a group containing arch-rivals Germany, hosts Austria and Croatia?
Before every tournament people in Poland usually have very big expectations - before Word Cup 2002 media were full of headlines like "We're gonna make it to semi-finals!", and the reality has shown us our place.
The same with World Cup 2006 - no one was even taking into consideration a loss with Ecuador.
"We're going to have a draw with Germany, win with Ecuador and Costa Rica, so we've already qualified to the knock-out stage" - anything else would be (and unfortunately has been) a big surprise.
So, when now "Polish experts" (usually the same guys for the last 10 years, saying same things about Polish team and their opponents) say that we have equal chances to Croatia in qualifying, I'm still rather cautious in my opinion.
But now we have Leo Beenhakker and he is actually doing something with this team...