Football: Polish coach's contract extended for World Cup
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
10.10.2017 12:00
The contract with Poland's national football squad's coach Adam Nawałka has been extended until the 2018 World Cup in Russia after Poland qualified for the tournament on Sunday.
Adam Nawałka. Photo: PAP/Bartłomiej Zborowski.
Poland beat Montenegro 4-2 on Sunday to gain the most points in Group E and automatically qualify for next year's tournament.
The head of the Polish football association (PZPN), Zbigniew Boniek, said: “It's no secret that when we signed a new contract with the coach [in July 2016] it was until December 2017 with an option to extend it in case of advancing to the World Championships in Russia”.
Boniek declined to speculate whether Nawałka would continue to coach to Polish team after the tournament.
But he said that as the qualification round came to an end, so too did matches against “easy” rivals. “Now we will play mostly against strong teams. First in friendly games, then at the cup and then in UEFA's Nations League, where we could face Spain or Germany.”
Poland's next games are friendlies against Uruguay in Warsaw on November 10 and Mexico in Gdańsk, northern Poland, on November 13.
Nawałka said he has planned “some experiments for the friendlies, to test some tactical options and give new players a chance”.
He added that Poland had to work on its defence, but that he was satisfied with the team's forwards.
“In the qualifiers we effectively scored 28 goals, so on average 2.8 per game. That's a good result. But we conceded 14, so 1.4 per game. That's too much. We know this and we will try to fix it. And other things,” Nawałka said. (vb/pk/di)
Source: PAP