Friendly Preview: Czech Republic - Poland
Wednesday 6 February 2008, 20:30 CET
Euro 2008 fast approaches, and each of these group winners is eager to improve on their already-impressive qualification form ahead of the tournament proper.
Thus the pair will meet in Cyprus for a friendly that, while counting for little in the grand scale of things, could tell us much about what's to come in Austria and Switzerland.
Czeching Out The Opposition
The boys in red and white finished top of a group also containing mighty Germany, and thus come into this game with no small measure of confidence. As such, it may be more of the same from the lineup which took 29 points from its matches and became the third team overall to qualify for the summer tournament.
But this game also allows coach Karel Bruckner to check out the opposition in more ways than one. Firstly, he can maybe see about the younger players coming through to provide opposition to the older players, which is of especial importance, considering that strike partners Jan Koller and Milan Baros aren't getting any younger.
As for their actual opponents, with Poland and the Czechs being in adjacent groups, it is more than possible that the two could end up meeting in the second round of Euro 2008, lending this trip a particular intelligence-gathering quality.
But it is on his own men that the focus lies, and Bruckner will look to make it six wins i na row and eight unbeaten.
Poland
The Biało-czerwoni, meanwhile, are on a high after topping a group containing heavyweights Portugal, the talented Serbia and shock troops Finland. Qualification itself was by no means assured when the teams can out of the pot back in January 2006; to actually top the group itself was no mean feat.
The key thing now for Leo Beenhakker is to keep it going, which is easier said than done.
Poland, while being one of Europe's more storied footballing forces in decades past, have - quite incredibly - not once ever played at a European Championships before. Even at the World Cup, where they were a force to be reckoned with as recently as the 1980s, their appearance in Germany in 2006 was only their second since 1990.
As such, there is the lingering sense that the Orly have something to prove. By topping such a powerful group, they have already done so to some extent, but to move to the last eight in the Euros at the first attempt would be something else entirely.
Another team performance here could see them pick up yet another impressive result en route to Europe's biggest stage in summer.
