European Football Cup 2008’s Weblog

Only 90 minutes may remain for Poland at their first UEFA European Championship so it is understandable when forward Marek Saganowski says they are desperate to deliver against Croatia in Klagenfurt.

Motivated
Leo Beenhakker’s side may have topped a qualifying group including Portugal and Serbia but they have struggled to repeat that form in the finals. After losing to Germany and drawing with Austria, the White and Reds go into Monday’s Group B finale needing both a win against the Croatians, and a favourable result in the other match in Vienna, to progress. “We have a hard game ahead but motivation won’t be a problem,” said the 29-year-old. “We play for ourselves, our families and our fans. We play for Poland so motivation is not a problem.

Uncertain fate
“Of course our situation is not great, because even if we win we’re not sure of making the quarter-finals,” he added. “We have to wait for the news from Vienna and that news has to be positive. We will try to play the best we can against Croatia. We want to win for ourselves and for our fans, then we’ll see what happens. But it is not all up to us, not completely in our hands. We accept that the Austria-Germany game will be just as important.

Out to impress
“It’s good for us that Croatia have already qualified,” continued the Southampton FC striker. “Their players know they’ll go into the quarter-finals and they will be a little less motivated. However, the players they bring in will be highly motivated because they will want to impress their coach and make it clear that they are good enough to be in the team for the quarter-finals.”

Form dipped
The question taxing observers in Poland has been why the team’s form, so impressive in qualifying, has dipped in Austria. “I don’t know why we haven’t played as we can,” said Saganowski. “You could say injuries have been a problem, like the one that ruled out [Jakub] ‘Kuba’ Błaszczykowski who had been our right-winger. Also, a lot of our players weren’t playing at the end of the season for their clubs. The fitness wasn’t quite there in our first match. But in the second half of our game against Austria. we showed we can play and deserve to be here.

High standard
“Things would have been different if we’d played as we did in qualifying, especially against Germany. But at the European Championship the best teams are there and the standard is much higher. By Monday night we may be out of the tournament but if that does happen, nothing will change. We’ll continue to work on being better players, on being a better team.”