Mikhal Zhevlakov for Wprost: It happens with our employees that the heart suggests something other than the mind

Dariusz Tuzimek, “Wprost”: Were you very disappointed after the match between Poland and the Netherlands?

Michal Zhevlakov: Not so much, because I didn’t expect too much. We had some good moments, but I’m not sure we’ve made any progress as a team since the playoffs against Sweden. Did you manage to build something positive and permanent during this period? I have the impression that sometimes we play either better or worse. Unfortunately, more often the worse.

You played for many years as a defender in the Polish national team. How do you rate the newly attempted positioning game experiment with three stopwatches and pendulum action? There are many voices that this option is exceptionally good for us, that we should play with four.

I have big doubts whether this idea suits our employees. Both Adam Nawalka and Paulo Sousa tried to play threesome, but then there was no breakthrough. One lost the World Cup in Russia because of these experiments, and the other lost Euro 2020.

We simply do not have enough contractors for this gaming system. Let’s look at the game against the Netherlands and our shuttles. Both Nikola Zalewski and Przemysław Frankowski have the same problem: although they both had flashes on offense, they didn’t do well on defense. Of course, I don’t want to make a scapegoat out of the pendulum, because in modern football the defensive game starts with the striker, but it shows what shortcomings we have as a team.

With a stronger team like the Netherlands, you can only win something by playing good defense. This is where it all starts. This is the basis. And we allow them to create so many situations that they can even score five goals.

How is it that Lewandowski at Barcelona, ​​Milik at Juventus, Zelinski at Napoli, Szymanski at Feyenoord look great, score goals, assist and play, and when they join the team, they leave completely? How to explain it?

The role of the manager is to organize the team in such a way that all its elements fit together. It is clearly seen here that the potential of these players is not used. But, in my opinion, we also have a problem that today we do not know who is the second - after Robert - striker of the national team. Considering the current disposition since the beginning of the season, probably Arkadiusz Milik. But if you look at who of them has done the most in the team lately, it would be Karol Swiderski. Here you need all the wisdom of a coach to make a decision that is different from the decision of an ordinary fan. One that can be seen as controversial but will ultimately prove beneficial to the team. Maybe that’s what’s missing right now.

Did you have an idea for a game? The Poles made their first sensible attempt to play in a positional attack only in the 57th minute of the match. Previously, we only felt, counting on counterattacks.

More or less at this time, we also had the first tackle in the opponent’s half of the field … We had too few of these rebounds. However, it is worth noting how we started this match. Our players attacked the Dutch under high pressure, and the opponents seemed to be just waiting for this. They immediately showed us that they can easily get out of such pressure, and they really did it. They laid our team all over the field, it immediately loosened up under our penalty area and flowed like clockwork into our defense.

Another moment caught my eye: how we build our actions, playing the ball from the back line. This was a huge problem. Interestingly, Jakub Kivior made the fewest mistakes in this element, although he is the least experienced of our stopwatches. I don’t expect centre-backs to go on the offensive in any way, but they should be actively involved in the distribution of the ball. I would absolutely require this at the presentation layer. Because if we don’t, we will become a very easily decipherable team because we will only have to play counterattack.