EURO 2021

With the Polish venues on track in their preparations for co-hosting Euro 2012, the lingering concern for the country’s football fans is whether they will have a national team capable of putting up a respectable performance. Coach Franciszek Smuda has seen his side fall as far as 73rd in FIFA’s admittedly farcical ranking system, with the dearth of playing talent a regular topic for the country’s footballing media. Many wonder what happened to the squad that won the European Under-18 Championship in Finland in 2001. That team included Tomasz Kuszczak, […]

Poland have appointed local Franciszek Smuda as coach in place of sacked Dutchman Leo Beenhakker. Having missed out on a World Cup berth and qualifying automatically as hosts for Euro 2012, Smuda’s first competitive game is more than two and a half years away. Smuda, who is the national team’s 44th coach, has a contract until the end of the European Championship in which Poland are guaranteed an automatic place as co-hosts with Ukraine. Smuda replaces temporary coach Stefan Majewski, whose team lost the last two games of the 2010 […]