Jan Urban is not budging on Bartosz Nowak. Asked again about the GKS Katowice midfielder at the November training camp press conference, the Poland coach backed his club form but kept the same line on selection. Nowak has 7 goals and 8 assists in 14 appearances this season, yet Urban still sees him as a player who would not be a regular starter for Poland.

Urban's selection line

"I value him incredibly, he does a super job at the club," Urban told Transfery.info, in comments translated from Polish. He then made the point that has shaped the debate all week. "We are going in a different direction. A debutant at the age of 33 in the perspective of European Championship qualifying - also for that reason it seems to me that his call-up would not be such that he would immediately go into the starting line-up."

The coach's position is not that Nowak lacks form. It is that Poland are building with a different priority, and that a 33-year-old debutant does not fit as an automatic starter. Urban also said, "If we were talking only and exclusively about the fact that now, at this moment, for these two matches, because he would help us, then I would consider it, but he would not be a starting player either. I am not looking for reasons that we are doing him wrong, no - in this position we want to give younger players a chance."

Nowak's club case

The omission still looks awkward from a club point of view. Nowak's 7 goals and 8 assists in 14 appearances make him one of the more productive domestic players in the conversation, and his current season line is doing a lot of the work for his supporters. Urban's stance is simply that productivity alone does not settle the selection argument.

He underlined that again when he said, "He would not be a regular starter." That is the key detail here, because it leaves room for admiration without changing the squad hierarchy. GKS Katowice will keep leaning on that form in the league, and Poland will keep making selections with younger options in mind.

Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 4 outlets. How we work →