The uncomfortable truth about the sins of Polish football - Grzegorz Lato

Lato gives two powerful examples. After a disciplinary incident involving him and Szarmach, coach Jacek Gmoch kicked their door, holding a bottle of cognac and three glasses, and said, 'Boys, let's make peace.' No media, no press conference, just a direct gesture. Another time, coach Kazimierz Górski neutralized a player's outburst with a joke, sending everyone to bed laughing. Lato contrasts this with today's Polish team, where players 'say they don't like this or that, won't play with that one, and it ends up in the papers.' He insists that even if a player is upset, it must stay inside. 'I would tell [Lewandowski and the coach]: sit down together, have a beer, or even a glass of wine, talk it through, shake hands, and goodbye.' The key is to prevent the conflict from festering and being exploited by outsiders.

Lato frames this as the fundamental difference between his generation and today's. He tells two stories. First, when he was a young, offended player, club president Edward Kazimierski told him, 'You have no right to be offended by the national team. When you are called, pack your things and go.' Lato obeyed and it launched his international career. Second, he recounts missing his own son's First Communion because coach Piechniczek insisted everyone had to be at the camp on Saturday. Lato left on Saturday, missing the Sunday ceremony, without complaint. He applies this yardstick to Robert Lewandowski's absence: 'A player cannot choose matches. Look at Ronaldo, 40 years old and showing up like a dutiful soldier.' The captain's behavior sets the tone — if the leader doesn't come, others have an excuse.

Lato argues that despite football getting faster, technical training has declined. He recalls that under Lemiszko once a week, they had a training match on the main pitch where the coach would constantly interrupt to correct. 'He taught us to think and to cooperate,' Lato says. He contrasts this with current players who seem to lack the ability to receive the ball cleanly or make quick smart choices. Lato believes that this grounding is what allowed his generation to improvise tactics mid-game without waiting for the coach — they understood the game deeply. This protocol is a direct corrective to what he sees as the over-commercialized, stats-obsessed modern coaching that neglects old-school technical mentorship.

Lato sees two interconnected problems. First, Polish clubs are too poor to attract stars, so they import mediocre foreigners who take starting spots from young Poles. 'If a German and a Pole are at the same level, who plays? The German,' he says, pointing to how Kapustka got lost in Germany. Second, talented teenagers get agents after a couple of good games and are shipped abroad before they turn 18, where they often sit on the bench or disappear. When they return, they can't fit into the Polish league. The result: the national team coach has to pick from a pool of players who don't play regularly in their clubs. Lato spells it out: 'We don't have a team like in the 70s and 80s. We were once third in the world. Now we watch a match and sometimes it's unwatchable; I switch to La Liga or the Bundesliga and feel like I'm in a different world.'

Lato doesn't dismiss Lewandowski's achievements — he calls him an outstanding player — but he draws a clear line: 'You can't pick your matches.' He points to Cristiano Ronaldo, still showing up at 40 like a 'dutiful soldier.' Lato recounts how, as a young player, he was initially left out of a trip to the US and felt like refusing a call-up to Bulgaria. The club president told him: 'For the national team, you have no right to be offended. When you're called up, you pack your things and go.' That lesson stuck. Then he shares the communion story: his son's communion fell on a Sunday, and a training camp in Germany started Saturday. He called coach Piechniczek to ask if he could arrive 24 hours late. The answer: 'Listen, if everyone else is there, you're there. I'm sorry.' So Lato got in the car on Saturday and missed his son's communion. He frames this as the norm: a player cannot select which games to play, especially not a captain.

Lato emphasizes that in his day, arguments happened — he and Andrzej Szarmach once got into trouble and were nearly kicked out of the squad by Jacek Gmoch — but were handled internally. The captain (often Kaziu Dejna) acted as a bridge to the coach. After the dust settled, Gmoch himself knocked on their door with a bottle of cognac and three glasses: 'Boys, let's make peace.' Another time, when a player caused a scene because he wanted to go home to his wife after a match, coach Górski calmly said, 'Jasiu, Jasiu, is something bothering you? … Good, I'm glad you don't like it. Now go to sleep.' Everyone burst out laughing and the matter ended. Lato says that today, players would rather run to journalists, which fragments the team. 'You can't wash dirty laundry in the press,' he states. The captaincy, too, has changed; a captain should be able to yell and use harsh words without anyone taking offense.

Lato uses a maritime metaphor: 'It's like on a ship. The captain is always right. Paragraph two: if the captain is wrong, see paragraph three. And what does paragraph three say? Go back to paragraph one.' He gives an example: when he and Szarmach were in trouble, Deyna went to the coach, had a difficult conversation, and resolved it. The players never questioned a captain's decision publicly. Lato also stresses that a captain must not be a muted figure — 'sometimes you had to shout, and you used uncensored words, and nobody took offense.' This was integral to the spontaneous tactical changes the team made mid-match, which the captain would orchestrate without looking at the bench.