FIRST impressions can mean everything. From a rather dashing outfit chosen for that important job interview, to the bunch of petrol station flowers hastily bought to butter up the new girlfriend’s dragon of a mother prior to a first date winch down the roller disco. The bottom line is you don’t get a second chance of making the desired impact on a maiden encounter.
In football, setting expectation levels early on is of equal relevance, if not for different reasons, and it is something Scotland appear to have done to great effect.
Almost exactly a year on from their first encounter together in this Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, the successes of the national team’s efforts in Warsaw are still fresh in the mind of the Poles who witnessed it. A team that had beaten world champions Germany for the first time just three days earlier on the same pitch were left frustrated by a resolute Scotland team. Not only did the plucky Scots have the audacity to cancel out Krzysztof Maczynski's opening goal within seven minutes through Shaun Maloney, Steven Naismith’s neat finish 12 minutes after the interval stunned both players and supporters inside the National Stadium.
Granted, Arkadiusz Milik’s thunderbolt of a shot managed to salvage a draw for Poland and deliver a point that may well prove pivotal in both nations’ aspirations of making it to France next year. But the scare provided by the Scots on that cold night a year ago appears to be still sending shivers down the spines of those watching tomorrow evening’s encounter at Hampden from afar.
Jaroslaw Kolinski is a writer with Przeglad Sportowy, the largest sports newspaper in Poland, and he believes there was enough seen of Gordon Strachan’s team in that first meeting to make Adam Nawalka’s team wait for the win they crave to guarantee qualification.
“We are afraid about the trip to Scotland, because we still remember how big problems Scotland caused us in Warsaw,” he told HeraldSport. “The good thing is that for us it’s not must win game. We can also qualify on Sunday against Ireland.
“We don’t have any other players that are in such good form as Robert Lewandowski, so yes - we rely on him. In the last three matches he has scored 6 goals. We have also Arkadiusz Milik, but he’s not in his the best form this season. Kamil Grosicki, one of the wingers, started only two of nine matches this season for Rennes. Jakub Blaszczykowski is going back to his best days, but still needs time after his transfer to Fiorentina. It means that we really count on Lewandowski.”
If only he was on a good run of form, eh?
Lewandowski’s strike rate for Bayern Munich in recent weeks has been nothing short of terrifying. Twelve goals in four games is the long and short of his current hot streak, with the fact he’s yet to score against Scotland little in the way of consolation for those Tartan Army footsoldiers trembling behind the couch at the prospect of the 27-year-old rampaging at their defence.
A player with great ability at Borussia Dortmund, he has quickly become a goalscoring phenomenon since his move in the Bundesliga last summer. His goals and performances of late in particular have catapulted the Pole into the spotlight in his homeland, and there is a natural excitement about what is still to come from Lewandowski, as Kolinski explains.
“Everyone in Poland is obviously excited about him,” he said. “We didn’t have a player from the top for a very long time, so for the fans it’s very proud moment, when a Polish player can be compared to the biggest names in the football world.
“We had some great players: Grzegorz Lato was a best scorer of World Cup 1974, Zbigniew Boniek was a big star for Roma and Juventus and won the European Cup in 1985. Lewandowski is as good as them, but to be the best of all time I think he needs a bigger achievement with the national team.
“Lato [in 1974] and Boniek [in 1982] were third top scorer in World Cups. Lewandowski has played in only one big tournament so far - EURO 2012 - and we didn’t even get out of the group. So he needs to improve in this area.
“He keeps both feet on the ground, that is another his strength. Even when he scored 5 goals recently, he was very calm.”
It then begs the question? How do Scotland stop him?
“To be honest, it’s really hard to point any weaknesses in his game,” explained Kolinksi. “His main strength is of course that he’s very prolific striker. He has scored goals for every club he played, so for Scottish defenders it will be mountain to climb to stop him.”
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