In my home country of Poland, football (in USA: soccer) is our national sports. We love it, we play it, we cheer it. And we used to be good at it… like 40+ years ago… but we’ve never been good at that until now… or so I thought.
Our national team qualified as number 1 seed in their group to the FIFA World Cup 2018. Watching them play together made me hope that for the first time in my life I’ll be able to see a Polish football team fight in an international tournament with their heads up high.
I had some concerns… but I didn’t expect such an utter disaster.
They say you can achieve up to 80% of success by just showing up. Well, Polish team didn’t really show up. I mean they were there physically, but not mentally. They didn’t play. They didn’t fight. They just didn’t do a thing…
On the other hand, watching teams like Marocco, Senegal, Japan or Iran play is amazing. These teams aren’t technically very good, but they’ve got so much passion, so much heart, so much will… which just shows this stark contrast with the Polish team, which technically is a number 8 team in the world according to FIFA ranking… but simply doesn’t have what it takes to play in a tournament like this.
The upside of this situation is that instead of cheering any particular team now, I’m just watching each game and enjoying it every time I see a team really “show up” and “step up” for the occasion. I’m just deeply disappointed that my national team decided not to…
Question: Who do you think will win World Cup 2018?