Mateusz Klich was part of the Poland team which lost 1-0 at home on Thursday to the Czech Republic, but he believes, he’s convinced, his country deserved to win the match.
It may not be the feeling of the Polish media, but Klich sees things differently and the Leeds United player has been ready to put up a wall of excuses and explanations to protect him and his teammates from the almost inevitable round of criticism they’re about to face.
The Czechs scored in the 52nd minute, and Polsat Sport quote Klich as saying: “I am convinced that if we were able to get things level fairly quickly, we would have won the match.”
In the 55th minute, Robert Lewandowski missed an open goal, but his teammate doesn’t think there should be any blame attached: “It was bad luck. It is hard to imagine that Robert would not take advantage of this situation if the pitch was in good condition and the ball did not jump right in front of him. That would be a certain goal. This situation is a pity, as well as many others, because we should get one or two goals.”
The Leeds United midfielder believes Poland played better than during their 1-1 draw with Italy: “It even seems to me that we were better off than with Italy. The Czechs are a weaker team than the Italy team and in this match we could have played the ball more and created opportunities. However, it is difficult to be satisfied when you lose. As a team, we did not play badly, while the Czechs had practically two chances.
“After one, they scored and the second after hitting the bar, so they did not threaten us especially and should not score. But they won and that is why we lost. However, it’s hard to draw a lot of positives from just such a match, because there is no doubt that we should win it.”
‘But they wont and that is why we lost’ is a classic of a line.
Klich’s defence of himself and his teammates is admirable, even if it’s clearly stretched to the limits, but the team need to get a good result in their next match against Poland, or the criticism is only going to grow further.
The Leeds United player himself didn’t have a howler and will hope to keep his place for the next match. Klich is in the relative early days of an international comeback and whilst there’s been a lot of praise, there’s also been some in Poland who aren’t convinced by his performances.
