EURO 2021

„My most severe deliberations concerned defenders and strikers,” said the Polish national team selector, who after 30 months of attempts and tests presented his choices. 26 players fighting for 23 places in the national team line-up have been nominated (the final decision will be taken after the preparatory camp in Austria taking place from 16th to 28th of May); the roster includes also 7 substitute players who have to be ready to replace the injured or indisposed players from the starting line-up. Franciszek Smuda indicated that football fans shouldn’t count […]

Polish coach Smuda announced first wide squad for the European Championship in football. No lack of surprises. Francis Smuda announced wide squad of Euro 2012 26 players. On May 6-16 kadrowicze will drill on regenerative camp in Belek, Turkey. Then the Polish national team will travel to Lienz in Austria, there to grind form the European Championships. May 27 coach is expected to announce 23-man final squad for Euro 2012. The likes of Arsenal FC goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny and Borussia Dortmund trio Łukasz Piszczek, Jakub Błaszczykowski and Robert Lewandowski – […]

A group of Polish folk-singing grandmothers on Wednesday won the race to choose Poland’s official team anthem for the looming European championships on home soil. The 18-member group “Jarzebina” – Polish for rowanberry – swept aside established opponents including established rock and pop names, a ska band and a rapper with their upbeat ethno-tune “Koko Euro Spoko”, which translates loosely as “Clucking Cool Euro”. Poland’s football association had opened its “White and Red Hit” competition to all comers, with the list honed down to 10 ahead of a live concert […]

Michael Laudrup, one of the best footballers in Danish history thinks that his national team has a good chance to make it out of the “Group of Death”, because it is regarded as the weakest team. “I believe in our dynamite during European championships”, he said. Rivals of Danes in Group B will be respectively: Dutch (June 9 in Kharkiv), Portuguese (June 13 in Lviv) and Germans (June 17 also in Lviv). “Our team plays traditionally the best when it is a priori regarded as a “loser” and in consequence […]

In Ukraine we still didn’t manage to sell 50 thousand Euro 2012 tickets – UEFA informed on Monday, adding that not only high accommodation costs are to blamed for this situation. In Poland there are almost no tickets for matches available. – In Poland we are basically sold out. In Ukraine we still have around 50 thousand tickets, confirmed Pedro Correia, a UEFA official, responsible for all ticket-related issues. – It’s no secret that demand was far higher in Poland than in Ukraine, he added. Euro 2012 kicks off on […]

Franz Beckenbauer said he believes manager Joachim Loew is in charge of the best Germany squad in the nation’s football history. The Bayern Munich legend lifted the World Cup as a player in 1974 and then as a manager in 1990, but he is of the opinion that neither group had the same strength in depth as the squad Loew is leading into Euro 2012. “We have always had a high level of quality in the national team squad,” Beckenbauer told Bild am Sonntag. “But Jogi, he now has the […]

Who else is looking forward to Richard Dunne v Mario Balotelli at the Euros? The prospect moved ever closer after Cesare Prandelli confirmed that the enigmatic striker will be in the Italian squad. Balotelli’s place at the tournament was thought to be in major doubt after he was excluded from the squad to face USA in a friendly back in February due to his decidedly dodgy disciplinary record in the Premier League. It is a facet of his game which Super Mario has hardly improved upon in the intervening months […]

Star striker Robert Lewandowski on Friday criticised Poland coach Franciszek Smuda’s decision to axe midfielder Slawomir Peszko from the Euro 2012 co-hosts’ squad after a drink-fuelled dispute with a taxi driver. “Slawomir was fined by his club, and it should have stopped there,” Lewandowski, who has questioned Smuda’s tactical choices in the past, said in an interview with the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. “It makes no sense to have axed him from our team,” he added. Like Lewandowski, who is on course to win a second consecutive Bundesliga title with Borussia […]