Football Thread 21/22

[Scisca]

 

Ok. Now that our Croatian brothers have defeated Argentina and turned everyone’s attention to them and Iceland has also lost to an African team… FFS. In the first round, the three worst teams were Saudi Arabia, Poland and Panama. In that order. Unbelievable. Humiliating. We haven’t played such a bad game in more than 5 years. I knew that our defence would be shaky (that’s why I predicted us losing 2 goals), but I totally didn’t expect the rest of the team to play so bad.

In my opinion, the coach (who I don’t like and who I wanted to be fired after last Euro) is to blame. The game was a triumpf of his arrogance. I had mixed feelings the moment I saw the lineup. We have never played with this lineup, plus he fielded many old geezers, who many considered too old to play two years ago at the Euro! Why the hell do we even play friendlies before the cup, if we play with a totally different team here!? We won the group in the qualifiers, we played well in the friendlies, we’re in the 8^th spot in FIFA rank and instead of playing our style of football, we’re doing something totally new to surprise the opponent?! Is the coach crazy? He did the same thing two years ago on the Euro and it was horrible to watch.

Our tactics perfectly exposed every single flaw of our team. It wasn’t Senegal that did it (since they were totally mediocre, we lost both goals more than they scored them), it was our coach. Just look at what I’ve indicated in my previous post. Our best defensive lineup is Glik – Pazdan. Glik didn’t play and his replacements… Cionek scored the own goal in the first half, Bednarek went braindead during the second goal. Neither one would play if Glik was healthy, but most importantly, we’ve played 2 friendlies after Glik went down. In neither one did Pazdan play with Cionek! FFS! That moron of a coach had two games, in both we played Pazdan with Bednarek, they played quite ok, so why the f*** did he all of a sudden pick Cionek, who has never played a single good game in the national team (I’m dead serious here) and has barely played at all in the friendlies!? It’s well known that neither Pazdan, nor Cionek can create offence or even pass the ball forward. Glik was the only player capable of that, Bednarek sometimes manages to do it. So what did the coach do? Fielded Pazdan and Cionek and tried to start the offence with them. FFS…

Piszczek has played his worst game in the national team ever. I don’t even know what to think about it, he’s always been great, but this game Rybus was our best player. That’s a surprise.

Midfield. Krychowiak played as I expected him to play – averagely, but that actually made him one of the best players. At least he tried. The other midfielders? Błaszczykowski has played 200 minutes total in the second half of this season. He’s old and needed painkiller injections to even TRAVEL to the training camp (I’m serious here, he couldn’t travel without painkillers). A surefire starter… He got injured in the first half and couldn’t continue, but rumors from the team say that he should start the next game. I don’t even…

Grosicki has only one redeeming quality. He’s really fast. Nothing more. This game he couldn’t take advantage of it. These two guys count as one player for me. The midfield was completely different the last two years. These two guys are good subs, nothing more. Where are guys like Linetty, Kurzawa and Góralski? Guys who actually played good football this year?

Zieliński. The biggest disappointment. How the f*** can he be the playmaker for Napoli, second team in Serie A, and play the way he has? He was completely absent, the only passes he made were back to the defenders. Inexplicable. Disgusting. I don’t know if he should get a second chance or not. Personally, I’d give him a chance vs Japan, not Colombia.

Milik. Another Napoli player who played terrible. His performance was a borderline sabotage. He passed the ball more often to the opponents than to our players. What is he even doing there!? He barely played after busting both ACLs, he’s a year away from being usable. But he’s the coach’s darling son, he discovered him back when he was still coaching in the league and can’t stop supporting him. Fortunately, rumors say that Kownacki (Sampdoria) will replace him. We also have Teodorczyk (top scorer of Belgian league), so it’s not like we have no one to replace him with (contrary to what someone stated earlier in the thread). Still, the moron of a coach had to learn it the hard way.

Lewandowski was meh. I’m disappointed he couldn’t take the team on his back, but then again – he got even less help than Ronaldo did At least he kinda tried for a bit. That was already more than the rest of the team. 

Also, there’s more and more rumors that the training camp was a massive failure and that players simply aren’t ready for the tournament. I guess we’ll see about that after today’s game.

 

TL;DR

 

The first game was a humiliation, I completely blame the arrogant coach for fielding a ridiculous lineup and choosing a stupid tactic, both of which we’ve never used before. Instead of going with the best players, he went with his old faithful. Like Spain in 2014...

 

As for today’s game – Colombia is the team I actually liked the most in the group in the first round, so it will be a massive challenge. If you want some advice for the predictions (comparable to the ones about the crappy defence), here it goes. Check the lineup (it will be announced 1.5h before the game, I believe).

If we play with 3 defenders – it’s a warning sign. The coach seems to be in love with this lineup, despite the fact it hasn’t really worked that well for us thus far. If we play with 4 defenders and Cionek is not playing (preferably Glik replaces him) – it’s a good sign. Basically, a good lineup is Rybus, Pazdan, Glik/Bednarek, Piszczek/Bereszyński.

If Milik or Błaszczykowski play – a huge red flag.

Zieliński and Grosicki – one is acceptable, if both are present, I’m worried. I’d let Grosicki in in the second half, but I wouldn’t start with him. Zieliński should get another chance vs Japan, imo. Knowing him, his mental state is terrible at this point.

Midfielders who should indicate a chance of success – Góralski, Linetty, Kurzawa, Bereszyński.

Kownacki absolutely has to replace Milik, the guy has no interest being in the tournament.

I’d also rather see Fabiański than Szczęsny at goal, but that isn’t a dealbreaker.

 

To sum up, we’re so devastated by the way we’ve played in the first game (the result doesn’t really matter at this point), that nobody knows what to think of this team anymore. Unbelievable. At least 5 players should be changed in the lineup, but unfortunately it’s a well known fact, that our coach is one of those who like to give players second chances. I pray there’s enough people around him to force changes. And that at least we play better.

 

PS. Belgium and England finally got it going. It was a nice change from this overall boring tournament, where everyone only plays defence...

 

Last edited by Scisca - on 24 June 2018