WARSAW: With just a year left until Euro 2012 kicks off, the gulf separating fan-fantasies from reality on the pitch remains huge for co-hosts Poland as they fail to thrill in their preparation campaign.
Manager Franciszek Smuda faces constant sniping, with Poland's PZPN football association having to deny rumours he could be axed before the European Championships start in the capital Warsaw on June 8, 2012.
Sunday's 2-1 home win against an under-strength Argentina may have helped ease the pressure.
Polish league player of the year, Polonia Warsaw midfielder Adrian Mierzejewski, is the new poster-boy after scoring his first international goal.
Overall, however, pundits remain unconvinced.
“With only a year until Euro 2012, we still don't have a team that can put the wind up their rivals,” complained the tabloid Fakt.
Fans in this nation of 38 million are desperate for a return to long-lost glory. Poland won Olympic gold in 1972, silver in 1976, and finished third at the World Cup in 1974 and 1982.
But the decades since a second Olympic silver in 1992 have been lean, with their solid World Cup qualifying runs turning into lacklustre finals performances in 2002 and 2006, just like their European Championships debut in 2008.
All that ups the stakes for Euro 2012.
“I'm from the generation that remembers 1982,” Mikolaj Piotrowski, spokesman of organising body PL.2012, told AFP.
“I'd like to live that dream again,” he said, adding that he hoped at least for a quarter-finals slot.
As Poland brace to face France in Warsaw on Thursday, Smuda is taking things in his stride.
“After this victory, I don't feel safe as manager. I'd rather feel unsafe and work harder still,” he said following the Argentina game.
“We're not Barcelona. We're just a young side that's been together for a year and a half. We need two years to gel.”
He also underlined that he has been plagued by injuries.
Smuda's squad is an equal mix of domestic players and those plying their trade abroad, notably in Germany and Turkey, including trio Lukasz Piszczek, Kuba Blaszczykowski and Robert Lewandowski of German champions Borussia Dortmund.
There have been reports of dressing-room disputes over tactics.
“The atmosphere's not been as bad as some newspapers make out,” Lewandowski told Polish news agency PAP. “The media's blown things out of proportion. We're doing all we can to make it better.”
For Michal Zachodny, author of the blog “Polish Football Scout”, the squad are fine in themselves.
“I believe in those players, I know them, but the manager needs an idea how to manage them, to shape them and make them play. Smuda's too chaotic,” he told AFP.
Like fellow hosts Ukraine, Poland have an automatic berth at the 16-nation tournament and must rely on friendlies to get ready.
Having missing the 2010 World Cup, they will have gone 968 days without a competitive match by the time Euro 2012 kicks off.
In October Smuda replaced sacked Dutchman Leo Beenhakker – Poland's first-ever foreign manager, who went from hero for the Euro 2008 qualification to zero after failing to get to the 2010 World Cup.
Of 21 matches under Smuda, Poland have won eight, drawn seven and lost six. They have scored 28 goals and conceded the same number.
Their best result was a 3-1 win over Ivory Coast in November, but the defeats include a 6-0 thrashing by Spain last June.
They have slumped in the 202-team rankings issued by global governing body FIFA, from September 2007 high of 16th to an all-time low of 73rd in December 2010. In May 2011, they were 71st.
Smuda, who has little time for armchair pundits, brushes off those numbers.
“Are we supposed to spend all our time thinking about rankings and not actual games? We have to play well, full stop,” he snapped recently.
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