Argentina has a minority of about 450.000 Polish decendents and in Brasil there about 1.500.000 . Most of there children and grandchildren are eligble for the Polish nationality. Should the Polish FA do some research and pick up some players for there national team? One example is Juan Krupoviesa, leftback, who I think is not capped with Argentina and does have Polish nationality. He played for Boca Juniors and now is loanded to Olympique Marseille Grabowsky of Rosario Central is another player who does have the Polish nationality and is eligble to play for Poland
The PZPN can't even lock up players that are playing in Germany, let alone South America. Although it sounds like a decent idea on paper, it is way too unrealistic. The Polish FA doesnt even want to pay for flights from England to Poland! The prospects of securing South American born players with polish heritage are too limited to actively pursue.
Beenhakker has said for Dutch TV that he has a guy looking for players who are eligble to play for Poland. He has done the same with TNT, I am sure he would be interested Diego Fernando Klimowicz does not have the Polish nationality but I am sure that if he is not tied to Argentina he would be pretty interested to play for Poland and I am sure he would make the team for the EC as well
Just because a player has a polish last name doesnt mean they are eligible/want to play for Poland. On what basis are you "sure that he would be pretty interested to play for Poland" ?
It´s very likely, that he is eligble. But I already gave you 2 names that are, and there are more. On the basis that all soccer players want to compete at the highest level
Didn't we already go through this with Klimowicz, and then it turned out that he was more of a Ukrainian than a Pole? But over all its a good idea, and if the guys at PZPN were more interested in the success of our NT rather than in pocketing as much money as they can, then they would be able to come up with many, I am sure, good players who could perhaps play for our National Team. Yet it would require lots of money for scouting, travel, tryouts. But even if it did, by some miracle, turned out that there would be enough cash to pursue these players, there still would be two things that we need to keep in mind: 1) PZPN may want to concentrate on growing home talent, rather than importing from abroad, and 2) if these guys are not playing - or haven't been capped on youth level - for their respective countries, what makes us think that they would be any better than the guys we already have on the team? It's not like the guys on the team right now are all a bunch of underachievers...and just because a guy plays for OM it doesn't mean that he is any better than our current players. In fact, if I am not mistaken Swierczewski played for OM for a couple of seasons before the World Cup in 2002, and he was a complete disapointment at the tournament.
Yeah, but just becasue these guys are from Argentina or Brazil doesn't mean that they are automatically better than guys from Poland. So here is the problem that PZPN faces, and although I don't necessarily agree, I kind of understand their reasoning: out of those 800 players there may be max 5-10 that may be good enough to try out for the Polish NT. Is it worth for PZPN to scout every single one of these 800 players just to find the few diamonds? And what if they invest lots of money, only to find out that the player is not interested in playing for Poland, or can't for whatever reason, or turns out to be a dud? A system of local scouts, working perhaps on some kind of a commission basis may be an answer, but it is just very hard to do logistically. If you ever been to polishsoccer.com, and followed the misadventures of "Tomek z Tarnowa", a kid from the USA who tried to be just that kind of a scout here, you'd realize how hard it can be.
I was with the PZPN for over a year as a volunteer coordinator here in the States. PZPN doesn't have any scouts....they call themselves scouts but they're not qualified, they're just coordinators...one guys is unemployed, the other is a free lance journalist who sucks up like crazy to Engel... I was a part of that group, and PZPN rides this system. It's beneficial because their is no commission and obviously no pay and it is written up on the PZPN website as if you would think that the Polish FA actually has scouts..., it easily catches your eye on the PZPN website. I've met with Jerzy Engel (Dept. of Schooling boss, former 2002 WC coach) when he was here in Chicago, and he didn't have any time for me. From what I know there are no such plans to make things professional. The PZPN is not a good place, people from Poland know about the corruption and the so-called "lesne dziadki"....even some of these "scouts" are douches. I only came across one good man...Poland U-18 Michal Globisz. Great guy, he actually started the whole scouting abroad thing. btw - i'm Tomek. Anyway I'm still involved with polish soccer - from a journalist point of view however, here is an interview for you guys from my website. hope you enjoy it - www.pilkarskietalenty.com/gaseckiarticle1.html
Most players from the First division in Argentina and Brazil probally could make the Polish team. I amagine that the players that do have the Polish nationality and want to play for Poland offer themselves to the Polish FA but you can probally ask a player agent to find out which players in the first division and top youth leagues have or can get the Polish nationality. If you have the list you can ask for the tapes and scout them. If they are close to the level of the NT you can call them up You can probally do the same in Canada, Australia, New Sealand, or the US but there in general is less talent. Don Leo did the same with TNT and did find some players for the NT P.S. Krupoviesa can be scouted ofcourse against Auxerre for example
Lots of respect to you for what you've tried to do, and for what you've actually accomplished. It just sucks that things are the way they are at PZPN, and with Polish people generally - once there was question of money involved and a degree of success achieved - the shit has hit the fan. Do you think that this can ever be done properly? Meaning that if the financial questions are resolved from the very beginning, everything is on paper, and the truly good people at PZPN are involved (like Globisz), maybe even the polish gov't - like the consulates - are involved to some extent? Anyway, I am sending you a PM on this... Good job on the web page as well. I hope you will find the time to expand it.
You must be joking. This is a lame generalization without any merit. Just ask the owner of Pogon Szczecin, a team that consisted entirely of Brazilians (one even a pretty big star) that couldn't even hang in the Polish First Division. And second, Poland IS NOT TnT. TnT: population of 1.3 million; Poland: population of 40 million, and virtually all boys play football. The amount of raw talent available is certainly enough, and honestly, if PZPN did what it is supposed to do, that is, knew how to groom that raw talent, there would be absolutely no need to look abroad.
A) Those guys were mostly not First division regulars in Brasil B) How many first division players in Argentina and Brasil do you know? c) That´s why the Polish players all play with European top teams D) Pretty worthless discussion to talk about what PZN should have done
A) I am not sure. I believe virtually all of them played in the first division at some point. But I have to check..this was a couple of years back. B) I watch an Argentine first division match at least once a week. IMO it is similar to Serie A, in that the matches between top teams are great, but the lesser teams are unwatchable. C) I don't think that is indicative of the strength of a national team. How many German players play for "top European teams"? If you exclude Bayern and other German teams , I can only think of two...and that's less than Polish players. D) No, I think that is the key here, because Poland has so much raw talent, if it were groomed properly by the Polish FA there would be no need for this discussion. Anyway we are having a strange argument, because I would like to see PZPN become more involved in scouting abroad. But at the same time I believe that the numbers of truly exceptional players who would be elegible to play for Poland is very small.
Getting players from South America does not stop you from developing talent It´s not a if/if discussion but a and/and
i think poland can do good, we can handle ourselves, we dont need "polish people" from argentina (klimowicz cant even say blaszczykowski, teammate in BVB), we should be scouting the lower leagues in poland for players that have huge potential and build them up.
Where are you going to get the money or, as sad as it may be, the willingness to actually go to South America and have a look at these players. Obviously all of us here want the Polish NT to be as good as it possibly can, but we all have to be realistic as to what we can achieve and what we cant achieve (this is all in terms of scouting, of course). We all wish the PZPN was more capable then it currently it is. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Smoga and Tomek both bring up excellent points and important information to the table when discussing things like this. The process to secure players with polish roots to be able to play for the Polish NT is a lot harder then it seems. It is a very lengthy process that, as has been made evident in the recent past, is one that is not really aided by the PZPN. Most of the work abroad is being done, as Tomek pointed out, by volunteers who bring important information to the attention of the PZPN. If you are really interested in this I suggest reading the Akcja Zagraniczna thread, under "Polish National Team" on www.polishsoccer.com/forum. It will open your eyes up to the real truth of the PZPN's recruiting process and such.
Krupoviesa is already in Europe and there must be more Brazilians or Argentines with Polish nationality as it´s important nowadays in soccer
Learning the definition of a phrase such as "personal attack" would be beneficial before throwing it around here. But being the nice fellow that I am, I'll offer you an explanation anyways. "Saying the same things over and over" - You keep bringing up Krupoviesa...what about him? So he has polish ties apparently. ok. that leaves us nowhere. "You're not making any sense" - There must be more Brazilians and Argentinians with Polish nationality? Where are you getting this from? You can't just make up opinions and then expect people to take the bait on it. If there was anyone with a relative decent chance of one day possibly playing for the Polish NT then we would have heard of him. It is up to the player to decide where they want to play. Look at the example of Zeyn Al-Abidyn S-Latef. It was him that personally took the initiative to pursue the possibility of playing for the Polish NT and now he has been called up to the youth teams and is on the radar. If you want to make this a serious conversation then bring up some actual facts instead of voicing opinions on things that nobody knows.