In the first half of Friday's Nations League match, everything was almost perfect for a long time. Almost, because of the few good opportunities that the Polish national team had, they failed to score a single goal at the Estadio do Dragao in Porto. Such a situation, in which you have a rival like Portugal, may not happen again for a long time. And if you don't take advantage of the situation in such an area and with such an opponent, what often happens is what happened to Poland.
The Polish national team like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which face of the staff is real?
We still don't know which of the faces of the White and Red team is the real one. The one from the first 60 minutes, when we saw a team capable of challenging itself against the best? The one who proved not for the first time, as was the case with the Netherlands and Croatia, that he can play without Robert Lewandowski even against such a strong rival? A team that plays aggressively, with flair, creates more chances to score goals, and even performs very solidly defensively?
Or maybe the one we saw after Rafael Leao scored for Portugal after a perfect counterattack to make it 1-0? The Poles stood apart after him – they neither attacked nor effectively guarded their own goal. More or less the same thing happened as in the meeting with the Portuguese in Warsaw. Michał Probierz's players created space for Roberto Martinez's team and were lost in defense. And to your rivals, just play it. Especially since, compared to the match in Poland, they were deadly effective that day, scoring shots from almost every position.
Over the last year, the Poles have presented two very different faces in one match several times. On Euro they were able to come out with a great attitude against the Netherlands or France, but against Austria they spoiled the match from the very beginning. At times, they presented a feisty team that did not get discouraged by losing a goal, able to react well to it in Euro matches, as well as the one from the times of Fernando Santos, when they received one blow after another in quick succession. Before the World Cup qualifiers, we simply don't know what to expect from the White and Reds.
Fate was kind to Touchstone, but he didn't help the team either. Embarrassment of his staff
Michał Probierz did not have an easy task on Friday, but in the second half he also changed his mind, changing the formation after Dominik Marczuk was introduced to replace Mateusz Bogusz. In a post-match interview with TVP Sport, he stated that he “had to make two changes during the break”, suggesting that Bogusz, like Jan Bednarek, was injured. Fortunately, it quickly turned out to be a slip of the tongue and the Los Angeles FC player was actually replaced for tactical reasons.
And although Marczuk individually made a very good debut in the national colors, documented by a goal, in the second half Probierz's team functioned much worse without the ball and when Portugal started to accelerate, there was nothing for Poles to collect. The coach himself admitted after the match that when the team suddenly changed to a 4-4-2 formation with Jakub Kiwior and Kamiński as full-backs, the team looked much worse than before, which also had an impact on the goals conceded.
However, only two of the five changes were caused by tactical issues, as Bartosz Bereszyński, Jan Bednarek and Taras Romanczuk were injured in the first part of the game, and only the third one was able to take the field after the break, after which Probierz replaced him with debuting Antoni Kozubal. And yet, during the warm-up, Sebastian Szymański, who was in the starting eleven, was dismissed by the coach. We should also add Robert Lewandowski, Przemysław Frankowski and Michael Ameyaw, who were absent from the training camp due to a back injury. A lot, right?
This is best demonstrated by the fact that from the basic squad of the Polish national team for the match against France at Euro 2024 (when all key players were healthy), as many as half of the outfield players are currently missing. Lewandowski, Frankowski, Dawidowicz, Bednarek and Szymański are excluded from the game, of which only the latter has a real chance of making it to the match against Scotland.
However, considering the huge weakening of the staff, what happened in the case of Karol Świderski is a huge failure. At a time when without Lewandowski every healthy offensive player is worth his weight in gold, it suddenly turns out that “Świder” is not in the match report. It wasn't supposed to happen.
The goal competition is over. Skorupski can feel confident
Everything indicates that Friday's match ended the competition for the title of number 1 in the Polish national team. Even though the shorts with this number somehow ended up on Marcin Bułka's feet in Porto, the Nice goalkeeper did not do much to win the duel with Łukasz Skorupski, who guarantees a constant, high level.
Bułka, just like against the Scots in Glasgow or in the first half of the match against Croatia in Warsaw, conceded goal after goal as soon as his opponents started shooting on target. Whether it was bad luck or bad positioning – the fact is that the ball consistently passed the tall 25-year-old goalkeeper after subsequent hits from the opponents. Of the 14 goals conceded by the team in the Nations League, Bułka conceded as many as 10, while there were only 17 shots on target. A shameful statistic.
It's impossible to win a place in the Polish goal this way, especially against such a solid rival as Skorupski, who, being a substitute for a long time, never disappointed when he had the opportunity to play in t-shirt with an eagle on his chest. Especially since Bułka also looked uncertain when playing with his feet or in the forecourt.
On Monday it's time for the “final”. It has never been so difficult to make a living
In previous years, the Polish national team in the Nations League was lucky in the fight to stay in the A division. When in 2018, Jerzy Brzęczek's Poles were about to fall to a lower division – being worse than Italy and Portugal – UEFA, most likely due to the Germans' decline, decided to enlarge the division And from 12 to 16 teams.
In the next edition, Brzęczek's team could count on gifts from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in the first match, due to the Euro 2020 play-offs, fielded a completely replacement eleven and it ended 2-1 for Poland, and in the second match they played with ten players from In the 15th minute, Anel Ahmedhodzic was shown a red card after Lewandowski's individual action and the team lost 0-3.
Already during the term of office of Czesław Michniewicz, the weakest in the “Polish” group was Wales, which, however, brought a second suit for the first match in Wrocław – also due to the play-offs for the World Championships in Qatar. In the end, it paid off for them, because although the Welsh were relegated to a lower division, they won a historic promotion to the world cup.
This time there is no question of any reduced tariff. The Scots will field the strongest possible squad, and in fact, on Monday, on the Polish side, you will be able to look for greater weakening in the persons of Lewandowski, Frankowski, Dawidowicz, probably Bednarek and perhaps Szymański. The team will have to beat all odds and at least draw with their Monday opponent.
And a lot will depend on which of the two faces of the White and Reds we will see at the National Stadium. After a match like the one against Portugal, our fears only increased that it would be the other, uglier face. The match starts on Monday at 8:45 p.m.