Karol Świderski fell first, the scorer of two goals in Sunday’s game between Charlotte FC and New England Revolution (3: 1). It was at this match that the 25-year-old striker contracted a muscular injury. On Monday, he is to undergo additional tests, but on Sunday it was clear that he would not come to Poland for the training camp.
On Sunday evening, the staff also knew that they would not be able to use Maciej Rybus. PZPN informed about it only on Monday, but the first one did. – Rybus did not have time to come to Poland. He stayed at the club. It was there that he performed the coronavirus test, which gave a positive result – says Jakub Kwiatkowski, spokesman and team manager of the Polish national team, with whom we spoke on Monday morning.
The absence of Rybus at the training camp coincided with a lot of media criticism that fell on the player of Lokomotiv Moscow in recent days. Fans accuse Rybus – as well as Sebastian Szymanski, who plays for Dynamo Moscow and Rafał Augustyniak from Ural Yekaterinburg – that despite the attack on Ukraine they did not terminate their contracts with Russian clubs. How was another team resolved – Grzegorz Krychowiak, who left FK Krasnodar and signed a contract with AEK Ateny.
“It is impossible to get over”
In the Polish Football Association they do not want to comment on the election of the national team who stayed in the Russian clubs. Recently, however, Robert Lewandowski talked a bit about it. On Sunday, the captain of the Polish national team, together with his wife Anna, appeared in the “Dzień Dobry TVN” studio. It was there that he revealed that the protest against the game with Russia in the play-off for the World Cup in the national team was supported by everyone. With no exception.
“Of course I’m the captain, so I started calling the guys on the team.” I wanted to know their opinion. And it was not the same situation for everyone, because we have players in the team who played or are playing in the Russian league and for them it is all even more difficult. But we were all unanimous. Everyone saw what it looked like and each of us felt what needed to be done. That it is impossible for us to play with Russia – said Lewandowski.
FIFA, which remained silent during the first days of Russian aggression against Ukraine, finally awarded Poland a free fate less than two weeks ago. It has decided that Russia – which has so far been unsuccessfully trying to appeal to the Lausanne Arbitration Tribunal for Sport – has been suspended. This made Czesław Michniewicz’s team move directly to the play-off finals, where on March 29 in Chorzów they will fight for a trip to the World Cup with the winner of the Sweden – Czech Republic match.
Michniewicz does not plan any additional appointments
Earlier, on Thursday, the Polish national team will play a friendly away match with Scotland. – We still have 31 players – says Kwiatkowski and reveals that Michniewicz does not plan any additional appointments in place of Rybus and Świderski.
Michniewicz has not yet started working with the Polish national team for good, and his decisions are already being questioned. the new head coach was criticized by Jerzy Dudek and Dariusz Dziekanowski. Both agree that Michniewicz made a mistake, citing as many as 33 players for the March matches.
– It makes a fuss, and when we planned the number of players, we also assumed the game with Russia. We had to keep the deadlines for calling up players from abroad, and some of them planned to play four more games. There is always a risk in this situation, so we wanted to appoint three players per position. That was the assumption. We also needed four wingers, hence Michalak and Grosicki, not to be limited to one position – before the start of the training camp.
The grouping of the Polish national team starts on Monday in Katowice. Officially from the Michniewicz press conference, which is scheduled for 17.30 at the Silesian Stadium. This is where trainings will take place on Monday, but also on Tuesday. The former is fully open to the media, the latter – only for the first quarter of an hour. On Tuesday – also at the Silesian Stadium – Lewandowski will meet with journalists as usual. A day later, the squad will depart for Glasgow.
Source: Sport
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