The Polish Problem Part 2

In an earlier post I touched on the Polish national team's failure to qualify for yet another World Cup. Through PZPN, the Polish football association, corruption and greed undermined the development of football in the country. However, I needed to write this post to also show what problems Poland faced on the field. For starters, Poland has only had one golden generation of footballers stretching from the '74 and '82 World Cups, where the national side clinched third place both times. Superstars like Kazimierz Deyna, Zbigniew Boniek, Grzegorz Lato and countless others showed the world that Poland was an emerging juggernaut in the world of football. Sad to say, after that generation retired Poland slipped back down the pedestal, with the group stage being the farthest qualification thereafter. After so much promise in the 70s why is it that Poland can't get back on the mantle on which it once stood? Well, the first problem rests on the shoulders of the man on top. Almost every Polish manager since Kazimierz Gorski (1971-76 Poland coach) has also been a former player. Like Simon Kuper outlined in his book Soccernomics, most players, who go into coaching fail because they aren't qualified for the position in the first place. Being the man, who sets up the formations and tactics is an entirely different challenge. Think of it like a chess piece suddenly stepping into the role of the hand that moves it. Actually, it's quite fascinating that the only coach in the national team's history to have never been a player has also been the only non-Polish manager. Leo Beenhakker was the Dutch mastermind, who took Poland to its first ever Euro tournament in 2008 rightfully so before being hosts in 2012. It would have been sad if the first ever Euro was due to automatic qualification. Now, to make Leo look even more distinguished, the Dutchman is the only coach in Poland's history to have coached a world class club. Real Madrid, Ajax, and the Dutch national team are all on his resume. Looking at the Polish coaches, the collective have only coached top clubs in Greece, Cyprus and national teams like Tunisia and Sudan. The poor bill of top teams on the Polish end is really because most Polish coaches can't speak a foreign language and they also tend to stay very Polishcentric. This means that Polish coaches rarely study the game abroad, instead they focus all their knowledge through only Polish sources. For a coach to break out abroad they have to really have something special and unique that clubs can't find in the main managerial pool. Therefore, Poland lacks coaches with solid resumes abroad and ones who have studied for the position not as former players, but aspiring managers. After looking at the man on the sidelines, the next major issue is the man leading the team. Robert Lewandowski. That isn't a typo. He is the main reason why Poland have such a weak attacking force. Through his goal scoring prowess at Borussia Dortmund many people tend to forget that since Euro 2012 he's only scored against Greece in the tournament and most recently against Denmark in a friendly. Add two more goals in World Cup qualifiers and in over one year, starting every game for Poland, he's only found the back of the net four times. At this point, it doesn't matter if there's no player in Mid to lay off the ball to him like Marco Reus or Mario Gotze. The problem is that the team is shaped to play the ball to Lewandowski. Lewy is like dark matter in the Polish formation with everything orbiting around him, but there's just nothing there. Don't get me wrong, he's a great player, who will continue to score, but not for Poland. Once you get rid of him from the squad, Poland should slowly start to find a new identity in attack. It's like when Raul was in the Spanish national team. Once Spain stopped capping him they suddenly gained a new style that has led to three major trophies in world football ever since. Call me crazy, but I also believe that Poland needs to stop defending so tight and start taking risks by opening up the field through its attack. If we're already losing games on repeat I feel like stepping up and having the balls to make an offensive minded team could at least give Poland a chance. The major obstacle to overcome in all of this has always been the Polish mentality though. Polish people are afraid to take big risks and fail because then everyone is a smart ass from the media to the fans. They all say, you see the reason we lost is because of these drastic changes. Well, the reason Poland is losing all the time right now is because there are no drastic changes, so all I hope for is that Adam Nawalka or Zbigniew Boniek come across this post in some twist of fate and comprehend what the problem is. Just do something drastic because this ongoing minimalism is not suiting my dreams of a juggernaut Polish national team that has been absent since '82.