ERV Poland trembles with „Bialo-czerwoni”

Poland didn’t participate in the last two World Cups, so there is big excitement among fans before this years’ tournament. With an unpredictable Group H consisting of Colombia, Senegal, Japan and Poland, every team will fancy their chances and after the first defeat against Senegal the „Bialo-czerwoni” („White and reds”) have to win against Colombia on sunday. But no matter what, you can be sure that the faithful Polish fans will stand by the team.

Our two previous World Cup tournaments in the 21st century (2002 and 2006) had identical, negative scenarios. On both occasions the hopes were high but the Polish team as well as fans underestimated our rivals heavily.

In both 2002 and 2006 the first games were unexpected losses to South Korea and Ecuador respectively. Then Poland was thrashed by heavyweights Portugal (2002) and Germany (2006) ending hopes of qualification to the Round of 16. The last group matches ended in honorable wins against USA and Costa Rica but the bad impressions remained.

At Euro 2016 Poland performed well, only losing to eventual winner Portugal in the quarter-finals penalty shootout. Such result made the national team popular again. In addition, the current crop of players has much more quality than those in the past decade. Robert Lewandowski is a prime example for such a power shift. A global superstar and captain of the team, who was top scorer in European World Cup Qualifiers. It took him only 10 games to score astonishing 16 goals. The whole nation expects him to continue his goal scoring exploits in Russia.

Other key names in the squad include every commentators nightmare in the shape of Wojciech Szczesny, Lukasz Piszczek and Jakub Blaszczykowski.

In the build-up to Poland vs Colombia, you can expect the streets of Polish cities to be filled with cars with attached national flags and people gathering in fan zones to watch the game. In Gdansk, where ERV has its office, you can also expect fans from other nations competing in the world championship. The reason? Teams such as Spain, Belgium and England will play in Kaliningrad, which is located only 180 km from Gdansk. So here on the Baltic coast we feel almost as a co-host of the tournament and are waiting impatiently for the football fest to begin.

Author: Maciej Kościelniak, ERV Poland