Poland

[Paula]

Benvinguda! Are you Polish?

Yes

[Paula]

Today at the National Stadium in Warsaw tournament held Danone Nations Cup 2012 for kids. The main ambassador was Zinedine Zidane. The tournament won South Korea.

[rafals]

Time for some news from Poland. Hardly ever there is something worth sharing with you guys, but there are a lot of changes going on. You might have heard about the Europa League 2015 final which will be hosted in Warsaw, things are generally looking better now that Boniek is in charge of the Polish FA, probably thanks to the fact that he knows Platini really well and thanks to the success of Euro 2012 as well.

But also, and more importantly, Ekstraklasa (La Liga's polish equivalent) will be much different starting from the next season - so far it's been just like in La Liga and now, after the regular season is complete, there will be two playoffs - for the best teams, which will determine the champions and also for the worst teams, which will determine who gets relegated and who stays. Not sure if I am a fan of this idea though, but I'll just wait and see how it looks and then judge.

By the way, it's funny to read all those comments from 3 years ago, back when we Poles meant absolutely nothing in European football, now it has changed a lot (I mean Borussia ofc). Unfortunately that doesn't influence the national team's performances yet.

I'm not expecting anyone to answer as almost no one is familiar to this topic, I just felt obliged to write about that

[Kerrybai]

I think it's a smart idea as it gives the teams from positions 3-8 at lot more to fight for at the end of the season. They should do the same in Greece where 1 team has dominated. In fact it would probably be a good idea for La Liga too. When Poland visited Ireland last year there were almost as much Poles as Irish at the game!

[rafals]

Oh man, I love the Irish since Euro 2012. Since I live in Warsaw, I would go with my friends to the city centre to watch all those games and you guys have been so spectacular, seeing you having fun like that was great

And about those changes, I completely forgot to explain how those playoffs will look - this will not be based on a knockout stage. The team's amount of points from the first half of the competition will be divided by 2 and then it will be once again like in a regular league. So that's still a bit strange.

[Kerrybai]

Oh man, I love the Irish since Euro 2012. Since I live in Warsaw, I would go with my friends to the city centre to watch all those games and you guys have been so spectacular, seeing you having fun like that was great

And about those changes, I completely forgot to explain how those playoffs will look - this will not be based on a knockout stage. The team's amount of points from the first half of the competition will be divided by 2 and then it will be once again like in a regular league. So that's still a bit strange.

I missed Euro 2012 as I was in the US for the summer, I have been to krakow... Polish women are gorgeous arty1:

Those rule changes are quite strange, I'm not sure I understand the point of it?

[rafals]

They are indeed. What always makes me curious is the fact that everyday you just see women who are much more beautiful that all those hyped models and celebrities, especially in big cities.
And I don't understand the point either, but I'll judge it after seeing it myself. Maybe those rules haven't been explained completely yet or I just missed some important facts

[El Gato]

BACKROOM DRAMA RUMORS ALERT
Not that it really matters anymore but for those interested, some reddit stuff is gaining traction online regarding the reasons for Poland's utter uselessness at the WC.

- Before WC one of the most controversial sport journalists in Poland reports that team done more drinking and parties than Mexico. He is heavily hated and no one believes him.
- After Senegal game, more voices say that. Some people working at Polish team fanpage, "Laczy nas pilka", are leaking info about ongoing drama between Lewandowski and Blaszczykowski, as apparently Lewy was fed up about lack of professionalism in team and was outed from the group despite being captain.
- After Colombia game, shit hit the fan, players start cracking up and talked about how terrible was the preparations prior tournament, Glik and Rybus openly criticised Nawalka for being a bad manager.
- Journalists starts speaking as well, telling that Peszko was chosen for the WC only because Lewandowski made an ultimatum that he would end his career in national team. Some reports says about huge party day prior team announcement, which ended with some kind of accident with Glik, and that's how he ended up getting injured.
- Stanowski, most well informed journalist about Polish team tells that Fabianski, Krychowiak and Blaszczykowski made a group that is both against Lewandowski as a captain and younger players as starters.
- Pazdan fires up the atmosphere saying that there will be a need to openly talk about what happened in Arłamow, during the training camp before going to Russia.

Further rumor details:
- Team had gone for a pissup in a nightclub the night before final squad was selected, there was a row and they destroyed DJ's equipment
- Supposedly Glik was found being sick in the hotel corridor afterwards indicating the sheer magnitude of the party
- Nawalka seems to be teaming up with Lewa against the squad, both saying that "team performed as well as they were capable of" during the latest press conference, which is interpreted as a dig towards many of the squad.

My thoughts?
1) Nobody really knows who that first reporter is and his tweets went ignored by the mainstream, but apparently stuff adds up. Stanowski isn't really that trustworthy, but he managed to guess the team against Colombia 3 days ahead of the match so has some credibility.
2) Some things here contradict each other like Lewa somehow being fed up with professionalism and then threatening for the selection of otherwise useless 4-kidney Peszko.

So not sure how much you can believe this, but some things do indicate some backstage fuckery. Pazdan did make this weird statement in an interview that "there'll be time to talk about the preparations", Lewa and manager did seem isolated from the rest of the team by the end of it.


TL;DR
Rumor has it that Poland squad chose to go and party harder than the Mexicans instead of preparing for the WC. Cliques of frustrated people have formed and the rest is history.

[El Gato]

Fernando "Felipe" Santos new head coach
Lewa gonna be happy playing positive football eh

[Andresito]

That Fernando Santos? lol

[El Gato]

Yup

Might earn twice the wage Martinez did at Belgium NT too