Coach Smuda announces squad for E2012 and eyes potential talent to boost weak team?: photo - PAP/Radek Pietruszka
At a special Euro 2012 gala at Warsaw's Royal Castle on Wednesday night, the coach confirmed that Slawomir Peszko will not be taking part in the matches against Greece, Russia and Czech Republic in Group A after a drunken night out ended with a very public row with a taxi driver earlier this year.
As expected, Robert Lewandowski will lead the strikers and his colleagues at Borussia Dortmund, the German league champions, defender Lukasz Piszczek and midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski, will form the hub of the Polish team, ranked a lowly 65th in the FIFA world rankings.
Arsenal's Wojciech Szczesny will be first pick goalkeeper with Lukasz Fabianski, also of Arsenal, and Przemyslaw Tyton (PSV) in reserve.
Coach Smuda told the gala last night that it was vitally important that Poland make it past the group stage to maintain domestic interest in the competition. “But I am sure we can do it,” he said.
In a recent interview with Polish Press Agency (PAP) Smuda admitted, however, that he hadn't anticipated the problems he encountered while trying to build a winning team.
“The main problem is lack of players at an adequate level”, he said. “We had to build a whole new team”.
Euro anthem
Poland's official Euro 2012 was also unveiled last night. The winning entry (see below) chosen by viewers and listeners of the TVP public broadcaster and Radio Zet, is the folk-influenced “Koko koko euro spoko" by Jarzebina, a group of 18 grandmothers.
The title is untranslatable and doesn't make much sense in Polish, either. 'Koko' is the noise a hen makes; 'spoko' means 'easy', or even 'no problem' in this context, meaning, 'don't worry about Euro 2012'.
Polish football fans will not be feeling so confident, however, as Poland are the lowest ranked nation in the tournament.
The full squad for Euro 2012 plus some possibles which the coach will observe in training, are:
Goalkeepers: Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal), Lukasz Fabianski (Arsenal), Przemyslaw Tyton (PSV)
Defence: Lukasz Piszczek (Dortmund), Marcin Wasilewski (Anderlecht), Jakub Wawrzyniak (Legia Warsaw), Marcin Kaminski (Lech Poznan), Grzegorz Wojtkowiak (Lech Poznan), Tomasz Jodlowiec (Polonia Warsaw), Sebastian Boenisch (Werder Bremen), Damien Perquis (Sochaux), Kamil Glik (Torino)
Midfield: Eugen Polanski (Mainz), Dariusz Dudka (Auxerre), Adam Matuszczyk (Fortuna Duesseldorf), Adrian Mierzejewski (Trabzonspor), Jakub Blaszczykowski (Dortmund), Ludovic Obraniak (Bordeaux), Maciej Rybus (Terek Grozny), Kamil Grosicki (Sivasspor), Rafal Murawski (Lech Poznan), Rafal Wolski (Legia Warsaw)
Strikers: Robert Lewandowski (Dortmund), Michal Kucharczyk (Legia Warsaw), Pawel Brozek (Celtic), Artur Sobiech (Hanover)
Substitutes: Grzegorz Sandomierski (Jagiellonia Bialystok), Arkadiusz Glowacki (Trabzonspor), Marcin Komorowski (Terek Grozny), Ariel Borysiuk (Kaiserslautern), Arkadiusz Piech (Ruch Chorzow), Michal Zyro (Legia Warsaw), Ireneusz Jelen (Lille). (pg)
Poland's official Euro 2012 song