MATEUSZ JANIAK: You have been in the national team since the beginning of the term of office of Michał Probierz, who replaced Fernando Santos at a very difficult moment for the national team. Neither the results nor the game matched. It seemed that even the players no longer believed that they could achieve anything good and discouragement dominated the team. Can you feel the change in attitude during the 13 months of the current coach’s work?
ADAM BUKSA: I didn’t have the opportunity to work with coach Santos, so I completely missed this most difficult moment for the team and didn’t see what it all looked like from the inside. My appointment after a long injury actually coincided with a new opening for the national team and, considering how we are performing, we have been heading in the right direction for some time. Of course, everyone’s appetite – including us, the players – is certainly greater, but we are taking small steps in the right direction. This is the most important thing.
And did you believe that it’s possible? At the final stage of Santos’ work, the players themselves said they didn’t know what to do to make things better.
I could only observe my teammates from the sidelines, but as far as I know them, there wasn’t much faith in their play. But fortunately, today our situation is better. There is no doubt that the change in mood is colossal, but our ceiling is much, much higher. We are currently facing renowned opponents in Division A of the Nations League, but our number one goal remains the World Cup qualifiers.
The national team has changed a lot in recent months. The current leaders – Wojciech Szczęsny, Kamil Glik, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Kamil Grosicki – are no longer there.
Everything is correct, we are in the middle of a generational change. But new leaders must create themselves, we will not indicate them. It is a process that moves at its own pace and takes time, although we know that there is not enough of it. Staff training camps are relatively rare, several times a year, and only a few training sessions can be conducted, so patience is the key word. The most important thing is to be on the right track, and I think we are on it. This representation is not yet the final result.
You made your debut in the national team in September 2021 under Paulo Sousa, who focused on offensive, bold football. Touchstone is trying to move in the same direction.
Definitely, there are some similarities between the ideas of how these coaches’ national teams play. Of course, you have to measure your strength according to your intentions, because a brave game cannot be compared to an irresponsible one, so you have to be able to balance it. We definitely want to play football, not just interfere. We like it and we definitely have players who are predisposed to attacking. This does not mean that we have the right to forget about the defense, which has not been tight recently, but the loss of goals does not come only from the attitude of the defense line. No, no. Good defense comes from the proper behavior of the entire team as a compact. The entire team attacks and defends, they are connected vessels. And this is what we strive to do, to combine responsibility with courage.
Recently, the national team’s defenders have been taking a beating because the national team has lost a lot of goals.
But if we don’t defend properly collectively, everything falls on the defense line and it’s easy to judge them negatively. Only every mistake is caused by something, every individual mistake is a consequence of bad behavior of the team. The defense starts with us, the attackers. Very, very rarely is one person responsible for conceding a goal. Of course, sometimes there are exceptions with some absurd individual blunder that occurs once in hundreds of matches, but apart from that, usually a goal for the opponents is a chain of events. Error sequence. Let me repeat – these are all connected vessels. Neither attackers score goals nor defenders themselves.
Speaking of scoring goals, was the one against the Netherlands in the European Championship in June the most important in your career?
The most important, definitely. It’s just a pity that he didn’t give at least a point at the end, so he was kind of forgotten. But I also really appreciate the 2-1 score against Albania under coach Sousa. Who knows how the match would have turned out without the lead just before the break and whether we would have ultimately won 4-1. And if we hadn’t won, would we have advanced to the World Cup in Qatar? After all, it was my debut goal and perhaps my career would have been different without it.
Do you remember the moment of the header against the Netherlands? Sometimes players don’t remember such moments because they have such emotions.
I remember, I remember, I scored a few goals like that. It was not a goal extraordinary in its beauty or the way it was scored. The cross was sent to the near post, I moved there as I usually do and shot it. I wasn’t in any trance, but completely conscious.
When did you find out that you would start Euro 2024 with the starting lineup? Did the coach prepare you for this?
I found out two hours before the match, like every player, during the last briefing before leaving the hotel.
Joy or stress?
A bit of both. Of course, this information slightly raised my blood pressure, but I was also calm that I could do it and I felt immense joy. Such positive pressure that I always wanted to feel. These were unforgettable moments, but they are in the past and – to be honest – I don’t go back to them very often. New challenges lie ahead.
Let’s go back to the past for a moment – what lessons did you learn from the European Championships?
This is the most valuable experience possible. The mere fact that the Euro was watched all over the world and you could play against top players was priceless. You could say that thanks to this I can position myself in the hierarchy of European football, and this is significant feedback. I haven’t had the opportunity to play in a tournament of such importance before. However, the 2019 European Youth Championships were lower class. Experience and manners at the highest level – these are the two things that I mainly gained from competing in Germany.
Now let’s combine the past with the future – on the one hand, one point in three matches cannot be satisfactory, but on the other, especially against the Netherlands and France, there were moments on which we can build optimism.
Certainly, if we are ambitious – and we are – then one point cannot satisfy us. It wasn’t enough. Simply. It’s true that due to where we started and the fact that we saved our participation in the Euro at the last minute, there were no expectations of a sensation, but we still wanted to make it happen. Well, what we could afford in this particular tournament was just one point. Now the most important question is which direction we will go – will the qualifying rounds and the World Cup show progress? If this happens, we can say that we have made good use of the experience from the European Championships, which gave us the starting point as to where we are and what style we want to present. Because in the matches you mentioned, the style was satisfactory and we focused on offense.
Only against Austria it was bad, when the national team seemed more focused on defense. What didn’t work in this meeting?
This match had several phases. Our rivals started better, but then we got back into the game. After the break, we looked better again, but it was the Austrians who dominated us for the last half an hour. I can’t clearly answer what didn’t work. Sometimes there are worse moments, worse days… After all this time, I still can’t point to one thing that was at fault. In my opinion it was a complex issue.
Can you say that you have made progress?
Today is not a good time to evaluate, because we are still at the stage of searching and fine-tuning this staff. We want to win every match, but playing in the Nations League is a combination of testing and results, and that is very difficult. Coach Probierz has a very demanding task – during three training camps, to select a group that will start the World Championship qualifiers in March and advance to the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the USA. I think it’s too early to give grades. There will be time for that next year.
Testing and good results – it’s actually difficult to combine them.
You can’t treat every match as a final, because that way you won’t be able to go through the process. We are currently in the stage of transformation and evolution. Let’s not treat every meeting like it’s life, because that way we won’t build anything. You need to be patient, give the coach time to check and search, and only then will we be able to judge, after the qualifying rounds and the world championships. Now we focus on construction.
Of course, I emphasize it again – we want to win every match, but above all we have to be ready for March. Qualifying for the World Cup and the final tournament – these are our reference points. For the coach, this is the last moment to check something else, at least in training.
Finally, how is your health? You left the September training camp and were absent for several weeks.
Everything’s fine now. Rehabilitation took a little longer, but after my recovery I can play everything, and since we have a tight schedule at the club, I can feel the matches played in my legs. But don’t worry, I will do everything to be ready for the matches against Portugal and Scotland.
