EURO 2021

For Polish team Euro 2012 is the most important football tournament in history. As the tournament co-hosts with Ukraine we will host the 14 best representations of the Old Continent. This will be our second start in the European Championship, the first four years ago on the fields of Austria and Switzerland we finished in the group stage with just one point gained. Now, as before four years ago, Polish players goal is a minimum to advance from the group. The task was made easier for us by the December […]

Star striker Robert Lewandowski on Friday criticised Poland coach Franciszek Smuda’s decision to axe midfielder Slawomir Peszko from the Euro 2012 co-hosts’ squad after a drink-fuelled dispute with a taxi driver. “Slawomir was fined by his club, and it should have stopped there,” Lewandowski, who has questioned Smuda’s tactical choices in the past, said in an interview with the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. “It makes no sense to have axed him from our team,” he added. Like Lewandowski, who is on course to win a second consecutive Bundesliga title with Borussia […]

The project of the stadium was executed by the Rhode-Kellermann-Wawrowsky company from Dusseldorf, which has also built the famous stadium in Gelsenkirchen and in Hanover. In April 2008, works on the preparation of the ground for the construction of the stadium began and a few months later ground works were started. The official commencement of construction of the stadium was in May 2009. The works were to be finished at the end of 2010, but this deadline was not met due to various reasons. On 9 June 2011 PGE Arena […]

After the Euro 2012 group draw the bookies changed the bets on winning the event. Now they give better chance to the Polish footballers that face matches against Greece, Russia and Czech Republic, rather than to the unfortunate Danes. The fate put that team together with Holland, Germany and Portugal. If the protégés of Franciszek Smuda reach for European football championship, the London Bookmakers will pay 41 PLN for every one PLN bet on the white-and-reds. The same amount is offered to those who will bet on the victory of […]

Fellow managers on Friday tipped defending European champions Spain and Euro 2008 second-placers Germany as hot favorites to win this year’s tournament. After wrapping up a two-day meeting of all 16 Euro 2012 qualifier nations in tournament co-hosts Poland, managers were pressed by reporters to give their forecasts for the final outcome. “I think everyone knows who the favorites are. For me, they are Germany and Spain,” Poland manager Franciszek Smuda said. Even Germany boss Joachim Loew said the 2008 victors were the team to beat. “It’s Spain, in any […]

Polish football fans have celebrated the launch of the biggest stadium for this year’s Euro 2012 finals with a free music festival and fireworks display. The newly-constructed National Stadium in Warsaw will host the opening match of the four-yearly tournament on June 8 when co-hosts Poland take on Euro 2004 winners Greece in Group A. The first 40,000 fans to arrive on Sunday were given the chance to see Polish pop acts including VooVoo i Haydamaky, Zakopower, Coma, T. Love and Lady Pank. The at the 50,000-seat arena, which will […]

A coach should have a detailed plan for every group match. Franciszek Smuda, 63, has been leading the national team for 25 months. – In the clubs he used to be adamant. He worked hard for a great respect and recognition, because he focused on the work with the team and he wasn’t interested in nothing else – says Marek Koźmiński, 46-time representative, a silver Olympic medalist from Barcelona from 1992, who played over 100 matches in Series A and appeared at the World Cup in Korea. – In the […]

British bookmakers give the best chance to win the European football championships that are taking place next year to Spaniards, who are defending the title, and the worst to Czechs and Irish. The Poles are not regarded as favorites, either; in case they succeed, for every GBP bet on Franciszek Smudas national team, you can get 51 GBP for Poland Euro 2012 winner. The chances of Spaniards are estimated at the level 3.5 to 1. Slightly lower is the rating of Germans – finalists of the previous championships four years […]

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 […]