Poland reflects on yet another failure
Source: Agencies |
June 18, 2012, Monday
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FAMOUS last-gasp defeats are a Polish tradition in football so there was little surprise at a loss to the Czech Republic that dumped them out of the Euro 2012 finals they have dreamed of holding for years.
It was not the defeat that hurt but the tame way Franciszek Smuda's players - in stark contrast to their rousing comeback against Russia days earlier - went quietly into the night.
After a hatful of chances in the first 15 minutes, they managed just three shots in the second half of what was billed as their biggest game in 30 years.
"Coach Smuda and his players called this the most important game of their lives. We didn't see that on the pitch," columnist Rafal Stec wrote in national broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza.
The 1970s and '80s golden generation that produced Grzegorz Lato and Zbigniew Boniek has given way to a succession of average squads that have struggled to win games at major finals, never mind get out of the group.
Moaning at each other seems like a national pastime, and captain Jakub Blaszczykowski launched the recriminations with the revelation that players were kept on tenterhooks over whether their families would get any tickets for Saturday's game in Wroclaw.
He also said Smuda, who announced after the game that his contract would not be renewed, had gone too quickly and other commentators paid tribute to the coach, saying he remained the best Poland has.
The captain's ire was instead saved for Lato, a winner of the World Cup Golden Boot in 1974 and now the head of a much-criticized FA. "The FA president says that he has a good relationship with the team. I personally am not aware of that, because every time we establish something with him it completely is not held to. Many things are not done as they should be."
It was not the defeat that hurt but the tame way Franciszek Smuda's players - in stark contrast to their rousing comeback against Russia days earlier - went quietly into the night.
After a hatful of chances in the first 15 minutes, they managed just three shots in the second half of what was billed as their biggest game in 30 years.
"Coach Smuda and his players called this the most important game of their lives. We didn't see that on the pitch," columnist Rafal Stec wrote in national broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza.
The 1970s and '80s golden generation that produced Grzegorz Lato and Zbigniew Boniek has given way to a succession of average squads that have struggled to win games at major finals, never mind get out of the group.
Moaning at each other seems like a national pastime, and captain Jakub Blaszczykowski launched the recriminations with the revelation that players were kept on tenterhooks over whether their families would get any tickets for Saturday's game in Wroclaw.
He also said Smuda, who announced after the game that his contract would not be renewed, had gone too quickly and other commentators paid tribute to the coach, saying he remained the best Poland has.
The captain's ire was instead saved for Lato, a winner of the World Cup Golden Boot in 1974 and now the head of a much-criticized FA. "The FA president says that he has a good relationship with the team. I personally am not aware of that, because every time we establish something with him it completely is not held to. Many things are not done as they should be."
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