The former Polish champion scores Legia Warszawa. “It has gone too far”

I’ll start teasingly. Do you see any positives in Legia Warszawa in recent weeks?

– Hard to find. It’s good that Legia did not concede a goal in Nieciecza, but of course it was looking for something by force, because they played there with the last team in the table and only scored a point. The red card came again. Recently Artur Boruc, now Rafa Lopes. He came in to give an impetus to bring more strength to the field, and after just 13 minutes he weakened the team. It also shows that the pressure is very high and the nerves are letting go. Legia has a problem not only with the game, but also with controlling emotions. Boruc, Lopes, and Aron Johannsson are suspended for the next game. So there are other problems. Only they don’t come out of nowhere. Legia creates them itself.

Are these cards the result of frustration?

– Legia is at the wall. One player can handle it, the other cannot. Most of these players have found themselves in such a situation for the first time. They have a right to be frustrated because there is no improvement in their game. Another match, next weeks, and the effects of the work done at the camp are still not visible. And yet she has played with teams that are also in the last places in the table.

This was what hit me in the match against Termalika. Legia played like a weak team from the penultimate place. It was hard to think that she was about to escape from the relegation zone. On the contrary – the teams with the fewest points in the league met and served a spectacle adequate to this.

– Yes. Legia had few situations. One Johannsson, one Skibicki and Tomas Pekhart. And none of these occasions were great. Once after the set fragment, the second time after the loss of Termalika. There was still no way to see the fluidity of the game, the idea of ​​using pendulums or otherwise creating a bargain. Legia does not have a player who will create opportunities for himself or his colleagues with an individual action. Josue is creative, but he also needs someone in good shape next to him. I mentioned the swingers, because Johannsson too, and they don’t actually create an opportunity. There is no liquidity in the midfield. When you watch Legia matches you don’t feel that there will be a chance to score at any moment. The image of the Polish champion today is such that in the matches with Warta Poznań and Termalika he does not score a goal and all the situations he has created will be counted on the fingers of one hand. It has gone too far. Tactical problems are linked to the individual.

And there is no time to solve them. Now Legia has matches with Wisła Kraków, Górnik Łęczna, Śląsk Wrocław and one more against Termalika. Later, he has matches with teams fighting for the Polish championship. At the turn of March and April, he will play with Raków, Lechia and Lech, and later with Pogoń.

– And if there are such problems now, what will happen next? If they don’t score here, then where? Certainly the staff are counting on a breakthrough. But luck must be helped by a good organization, an idea for a match and the right composition of the composition for a given opponent.

Do you see any elements of the game that coach Vukovic has managed to improve?

– Again, hard to find. There are single flashes, such as a perpendicular pass by Patryk Sokołowski in Nieciecza or Bartosz Slisz playing for the defenders of Zagłębie Lubin to Lopes. But I don’t see any repetition in the Legia game. There were no more such actions. Much depends, but it will not double. I thought maybe it could be of use closer to the goal. Only then is it absent in the initial phase of the action. There is no Legion of creative and hit footballers. he is also not in such a form that he only needs two situations in a match to score at least one goal. When he scored the top scorer, no matter how the ball bounced off him, it fell into the net.

I do not know if, apart from Josue, there is even a footballer in Legia who we would say has a good form. Do you see one like that?

– The ball is not an individual sport. In the team, everyone is addicted to the game of the players they have around them. There is no player in Legia who will take on the game and win the match. I do not see such a thing in all. So you have to look at the entire team, at the individual cooperation between players. Nothing permanent can be built on single actions.

Foreign players understand the situation they find themselves in? They don’t treat Legia as an episode? If she falls, they’ll go away. They will not cry for a long time.

– You can think so, but each of these players has a contract and wants to play as best as possible to get to the cups, be able to show up there and maybe be interested in a better club. Each of these players has individual goals. I can’t believe that one of them doesn’t want or care. Neither of them want to fall off. But it’s true – determination and commitment must be greater. You will have to yank some points.

In Warsaw – the authorities, footballers and fans realize that Legia may fall? Vuković clearly said this after the match with Warta, as if he wanted to make everyone aware of it. For a long time this low place of the Legia was considered a curiosity. It seemed that Legia was about to crawl out. Even the coaches of other teams from the bottom of the table, when enumerating with whom they will fight for maintenance, skipped Legia.

– We don’t know what words are uttered in the cloakroom. But surely the players look at the table and understand the situation. There are not so many things in Legia that a certain simplicity is needed now. Reliable rear protection, combat, a few counters, the use of a permanent part of the game. Make it one goal in the game, but make it three points.

In a word: accept that Legia is in the penultimate place in the table and fight like any other team from the relegation zone. The way of the game you described suits the poorest teams.

– Legia is on the penultimate place. Must be aware of the risks. It may have foreign players who have always played for cups or the championship in their countries, but that’s behind them. Today they are struggling to hold on.

A few weeks ago, Dariusz Mioduski said that 90 percent. Czesław Michniewicza is to blame for the current situation. How would you share the responsibility for this penultimate place between the authorities, the coaches and the players?

– It is very hard. Everyone has contributed – from the president, through the previous sports director, to coaches and footballers. Everyone could do their job better. In my opinion, there is no definite answer. It cannot be divided into percentages.