Lewandowski & Poland: Return to Form Delayed

• Thomas Markhorst

  Editor NOS Sport

Last June the alarm phase one was at the Polish football team. Star player Robert Lewandowski decided to stop after a fight when International was the national coach as long as Michal Probierz was. Without the top scorer of all time, Poland suffered a painful 2-1 defeat against Finland in the World Cup qualification.

In the conflict, the Polish Football Association chose Lewandowski’s side, Probierz let go and appointed a new national coach. Tonight against the Netherlands (kick -off at 8.45 pm), Poland is playing for the first time under the new national coach Jan Urban and Lewandowski is also there again.

Yet the peace has not yet returned. The conflict of last summer dominates the preparation for the World Cup qualifying match with Orange. Moreover, there are doubts about the quality of the Polish selection.

The much -discussed fight was about the captain’s band. He was taken from Lewandowski, after he had asked if he could skip two international matches after a long season. National coach Probierz appointed Piotr Zielinski as new first leader, after which the case escalated.

The fight had to be sugged by the chairman of the Polish Football Association, Cezary Kulesza, a striking man who came in the news last summer after he was on a ‘Wodkafeesta‘Songs had sung with politicians from the legal nationalist PIS party. The federal chairman chose the Lewandowski side in the conflict.

“I absolutely did not laugh when Probierz left,” Lewandowski at a press conference on Monday. “With every change of trainers, in a club or in a national team, something went wrong and I am aware of that.” Furthermore, the record international refused to waste words on the situation. He wants to “look ahead”.

The new national coach of Poland is Jan Urban, a 63-year-old trainer with a lot of experience. As a player, he came to 57 international matches for Poland and played in Spain for a long time, then he worked as a trainer mainly in the Polish league.

There was no doubt about recovering Lewandowski: “It was obvious that Robert would return and that he would become a leader again.”

Urban is not known in Poland as a top coach: in recent years he stood in front of the group at Middenmoter Górnik Zabrze, with which he finished ninth last season. Critics in Poland claim that Urban has been appointed because he is friends with the striking federal president, who only speaks Polish and Russian and therefore did not want a foreign coach.

In his selection, Urban has access to some players who play at European top clubs such as Lewandowski (FC Barcelona) and Zielinksi (Internazionale), while the central defense duo Jakub Kiwior-Jan Bednarek has been playing together at FC Porto since this season. Yet there are doubts in their own country about the strength of the selection.

The team leans on many players who have not (yet) achieved the European top, such as Sebastian Szymanski (Fenerbahçe), Matty Cash (Aston Villa) and Nicola Zalewski (Atalanta Bergamo). In addition, Poland cannot afford much in the World Cup qualifying group after the defeat in Finland. It is not without reason that the game against Oranje is called a crucial in Polish media.

In that respect, the mutual balance between the two countries is not hopeful for Lewandowski and his colleagues. The Netherlands is already thirteen matches unbeaten against Poland (eight victories and five draws), the longest undefeated series ever for the Orange against a specific opponent.

The Polish national coach Urban counts tonight on support from unexpected Hoek, from the former national coach of Poland Leo Beenhakker, who died this year, of whom he was an assistant in 2008. “Although he is no longer there, I think he wants us and me from above. He was a great trainer and especially a great person.”