Poland at the UEFA European Championship

While the UEFA European Championship was first established in 1960, it took Poland as many as 48 years to qualify, by which time they had managed to attend five FIFA World Cup finals and win third place in two of them.

The long-awaited qualification finally came in 2008 although Poland proved disappointing, ending last in the group stage, a scenario which would be repeated four years later, though drawing against Greece, Russia and the Czech Republic.

Austria equalized in stoppage time in the 93rd minute after a controversial penalty, which the Austrian striker Ivica Vastić converted making the final score 1–1.

While Poland ended up at the bottom of the group for a third time in the 2000s, the sentiment prevalent in the Polish media was that of bad luck rather than any real lack of skill and most of public opinion was in favour of Beenhakker leading the national team to South Africa.

While Poland's poor performance at the last World Cup qualification was not forgotten, many hoped that the omnipresent sense of national pride as well as the honour of playing at home would push the team, composed of some prominent Bundesliga players, such as Jakub Błaszczykowski, Robert Lewandowski and Łukasz Piszczek, to their limits.

Consequently, the initial reception of the first two matches, which ended in a draw (against Greece and Russia respectively), was somewhat positive, leaving public opinion moderately optimistic about the result of the final game against the Czech Republic.

Nawałka adapted an extremely defensive tactic, all but eliminating one of the major Polish flaws at previous tournaments: the tendency to lose goals as a result of small mistakes.

The tournament was a major catastrophe for the Polish side, as the team started its run with a shock 1–2 defeat to Slovakia, with Wojciech Szczęsny registered to the history in an unfabulous style as the first goalkeeper to score an own goal.