![]() ![]() Unfortunately when you have such strong changes in a country it's very difficult to develop something like sport. "In the '90s there were huge changes in Poland not only politically, but economically, so everything changed. When the communist system ended in 1989, football was, in many ways, abandoned. But they didn't actually have to work down the mines they could concentrate on their football careers. State-owned companies or towns owned clubs, and players and coaches were officially amateurs who earned salaries and social benefits as steelworkers or coalminers. When Poland was behind the Iron Curtain football was backed by the communist state. The game, as elsewhere in Europe, has also been dogged by widespread corruption, which has been tackled since 2003, and hooliganism, which is still a problem, although the government is trying to clamp down on it ahead of the tournament. They currently lie 65th in the Fifa world rankings, below the likes of Honduras (61st) and Sierra Leone (63rd). After second-round elimination in the 1986 World Cup, Poland did not qualify for a major tournament until 2002. Poland finished third in those championships, a triumph they repeated in the 1982 World Cup in Spain. The footage on their flat-screen TV showed Polish striker, Jan Domarski, scoring at Wembley in a match which prevented England from qualifying for the 1974 World Cup. The game they were watching was from October 1973. Can the tournament revive the fortunes of a once-great footballing nation?Ī recent TV commercial for a Polish bank showed three men sat on a couch watching a match in a scene from contemporary Polish life. Poland is making much of its team's glory days during the communist era - but can they repeat it?Įuro 2012 championship co-host Poland's glory days on the pitch appear to be firmly stuck in the past.
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