Poland May Name Beenhakker as Coach After Early World Cup Exit
July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Poland may appoint a new coach for its national soccer team next week, with Trinidad & Tobago manager Leo Beenhakker among the candidates.
The Polish soccer association, or PZPN, will decide July 11 whether to replace current coach Pawel Janas, spokesman Michal Kocieba said. The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper reported earlier today, without citing sources, that Beenhakker would get the job.
``I can only confirm that Beenhakker is one of several candidates,'' Kocieba said in a telephone interview in Warsaw. He didn't disclose the names of other candidates.
Poland, semi-finalists twice in World Cup history, exited the first round for the second straight tournament in Germany after losing its first two games. Janas, 53, was criticized by Polish media and fans for not selecting the top scorer of the qualifying stages, Tomasz Frankowski of England's Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Beenhakker, 63, is a former Dutch national coach and Ajax technical director and has worked in Spain, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Turkey.
He led Trinidad & Tobago to its first ever appearance in soccer's World Cup finals this year. The country, with a population of 1.3 million, was the smallest of the 32 teams competing. The team managed a draw against Sweden in its first game before losing to England and Paraguay.
Poland is ranked joint 29th in the world by competition organizer FIFA, alongside Korea.
Janas's predecessor, Jerzy Engel, was fired after the results in 2002's World Cup in Japan and South Korea, in which Poland lost to Korea and Portugal before beating the U.S. in its final game. This time round, Poland lost to Ecuador and Germany before beating Costa Rica in the final match.