It’s do or die time for Leo and Poland

Northern Ireland and Poland are meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Saturday with first place on the line. And, more importantly, the loser will probably see it’s 2010 World Cup hopes go down the drain. But, that’s not the only thing on the line in Belfast, Leo Beenhakker’s future as manager of the national team is also up in the air.

Reymonta – no longer a fortress?

Kuba - early days at Wisla Krakow

My, my… I remember times of Henryk Kasperczak, when Wisla Krakow was a heavyweight champion of Polish Ekstraklasa. The teams feared to compete on their ground, as it was a stronghold nearly impossible to capture. Teams that achieved draw were celebrating a success. Only Legia, if I rack my memory well enough, was able to compete at champion’s territory. Even though, a draw was all they could achieve most of the time.

Wisla Krakow are still Champions of Poland, but I feel that times when the Reymonta Stadium was a symbol of glory are now gone. Some of you might remember a sensational 2-4 loss against GKS Belchatow in season 06/07. It was spoken of by the media for a long time as a moment, when spell of Reymonta was broken. And it seems they were right. Since then, I believe, the fear of playing away at Wisla’s turf is gone.

Brozek should think twice about joining West Ham United

Pawel Brozek has finally become what many have always expected out of him for years. The 25 year old Wisla Krakow striker has been a hot topic of late, not only because of his play, but also rumors surrounding him with a move to a bigger European club. Brozek has been a scoring machine the last two seasons. In 2007/08 season, Brozek led the Polish Ekstraklasa with 23 goals. And currently, at the winter break, Brozek leads all goal scorers again, with 12. Brozek had a remarkable scoring record in 2008, playing a total of 30 games and scored 19 goals. Including 5 caps with the National team and 2 goals, against the Czech Republic and Lithuania.

The future is bright

The league is having a winter break and the weather outside is rather gloomy here in Poland, what does not bring much vein. So, it seems as it is not the best moment to start a blog about Polish soccer. But only half. The end of a round is a good opportunity to try and make some summaries, to look at Polish soccer from wide perspective. Matters of Euro 2008 already have been spoken of widely across the web, so it makes no point referring to them. I’d rather focus on some other issues.

Back from the future (past?) with Poland

After the ridiculous training session, I believed Poland would gain little from facing the Czech Republic on Saturday. Seems I was wrong, as Poland did the unthinkable just like they did 2 years ago, defeat a world class team. Like against Portugal, Poland took control of the match early on and pressured until the score was 2:0 in favor for them. Indeed, something that you don’t see everyday from the Bialo-czerwoni, such as beautiful collective passing, and defending. Yes, the defense did have a good game. The Polish defense, which embarrassed itself in two major tournaments before made itself look like a brick wall at times. I was shocked and impressed as everyone when I witnessed this. This game truly was a flash of the past!

Polish footy dodgeball, anyone?

Polish SOCA! LA sent me to Poland on Tuesday to report on the NT training session. I was lucky enough to get a lot closer to some of the real action then some other Polish journalists, and even got to chat up with some of the players. That being said, I have to be brutally honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I knew when I was told I’d be packing my bags for Wronki, Poland that it be nothing like a Brazilian NT training camp, or any of that sort. No it was… well different. Sometimes I was shocked, sometimes I was drunk, because well you have to be to appreciate the Polish NT.