Poland’s search for a new national coach has landed them in front of a serial winner. Steven Gerrard is currently the leading candidate, according to reports from Polish media on Tuesday afternoon.
After the less than sparkling World Cup in Qatar, the paths of the Polish national team and their manager Czeslaw Michniewicz parted. In order to really make an impression at the European Championships in Germany in a year and a half, the association office in Warsaw is actively looking for a successor. According to Polish sports website Meczyki, talks with Gerrard have already started.
The Liverpool figurehead has had a promising start to his coaching career. At Rangers, he prevented Celtic from crediting a tenth league title in a row, which earned him a transfer to Premier League club Aston Villa. In Birmingham he worked with Polish internationals Matty Cash and Jan Bednarek, until he was fired at the end of last year due to disappointing results.
Poland had a colorless World Cup. The team around star Robert Lewandowski made it through the group stage at the expense of Mexico, and were silenced against France in the second round. The route to the European Championship looks favorable: together with the Czech Republic, they are the clear favorites for the two places in the tournament that will be divided into Group E. It also includes Albania, the Faroe Islands and Moldova.
This is not the first role that Steven Gerrard was approached or at least considered since his departure from Villa Park. Club Brugge brought in Scott Parker, a coach who has already had several successes in his career. With both Fulham and Bournemouth, the former midfielder was promoted to the Premier League.
Incidentally, according to Het Laatste Nieuws, Parker was not the top candidate in Bruges. Kasper Hjulmand (national coach Denmark) and Steven Gerrard (clubless after resigning from Aston Villa) would also have been approached, but they did not accept the current number four in Belgium.
