Warsaw: Poles woke up on Sunday asking who was to blame for their surprise loss against the Czech Republic, and wondered whether they could keep their spirits up for the rest of the European Championships as co-hosts now that their team has crashed out.
“Let’s be like the Irish,” said sports commentator Tomasz Zimoch, referring to the fans who cheered and sang The Fields of Athenry despite a 4-0 loss against Spain.
“Let’s not lose enthusiasm,” Zimoch said. “The Euro goes on.”
But optimism was difficult for those who were stunned by the 1-0 loss against a team many considered easy competition.
“It was an opportunity that will not come again, the rival was within reach,” wrote the website sport.pl. “But [coach Franciszek] Smuda, [captain Jakub] Blaszczykowski and the team didn’t know how to take something that was within their grasp.”
“You let our hopes down. You’re good for nothing,” said the tabloid Fakt, noting that it could only forgive goalie Przemyslaw Tyton, Blaszczykowski and forward Robert Lewandowski who had put up a good fight.
Many said their team lost steam and lacked the fighting spirit they displayed in the previous match with more difficult rivals Russia, which ended in a 1-1 draw.
Others blamed Smuda, and said the coach was not experienced enough to handle a European Championship. One commentator on TVN 24 noted details like Smuda’s shaking hands after the game with Russia, which he called tell-tale signs that the coach was in over his head.
Football fans began throwing the blame minutes after the final whistle as they filed out of the 100,000-capacity fan zone in the Polish capital.
They yelled vulgar chants against the football association, which is riddled with corruption problems and widely unpopular.
Blaszczykowski blasted association head Grzegorz Lato after the game, saying he had hurt players’ focus.
“It can’t be that before every match we must ask mister president if our families can get tickets or not,” Blaszczykowski said. “Family is most important, and we have to worry if they can come ... That takes away our concentration on the field.”
Poles “as a country, as fans, as players”, had passed the exam, but PZPN had failed, Jacek Protasiewicz, a Polish politician in the European Parliament, said in the daily Wyborcza.
Fans in the Warsaw fan zone had climbed on top of trees to get a glimpse of screens broadcasting the game when the 100,000-capacity fan zone had filled.
Others crouched near a gap in a fence to watch the broadcast of the highly-anticipated match that, if Poland had won, would have propelled the team to their first Euro quarter-finals.
After the game, the mood remained festive despite a few fans who were crying or appeared irreconcilable.
Several fans said they would keep coming to the fan zone to cheer on favourites like Spain or Germany.
Larger groups chanted the well-known refrain that Polish fans sing to calm their emotions after stinging defeats.
“Poles, it is nothing,” they sang to the tune of Guantanamera. “Poles, nothing has happened.”
