Poland coach Janas hopes to repeat the legacy

WARSAW, May 23: Slowly and quietly, Pawel Janas has assembled the best record of any Polish national coach since he played in the side which took the country to third place in the World Cup for the second time in eight years in 1982.

After leading the Poles to 28 wins and six draws in his first 44 games as coach, Janas heads for the World Cup finals knowing a quarter-final place would set to rest a legacy dating back to the last finals to be held on German soil.

As a player Janas, now 53, joined the national team too late to play in 1974, when the Poles came within a whisker of beating Germany on a water-logged semi-final pitch in Frankfurt.

He was, however, at the heart of the side that took third place in Spain in 1982, marshalling a defence that conceded just one goal before a 2-0 semi-final defeat to Italy.

''Janas is simply an authority for the players,'' said football commentator and columnist Stefan Szczeplek. ''Players will often tell a coach: 'Why don't you show us yourself?' ''Janas can really show them and the players like him as a result.'' Born in the small town of Pabianice in central Poland, Janas played all his club football in communist Poland until Auxerre coach Guy Roux took him to France after the 1982 finals.

He won the French League's best foreign player award during a four-year stay and Roux's lessons later helped him to drive Legia Warsaw to the Champions League quarter-finals as coach in 1996 following the second of two Polish league titles.

Introverted and shy with the media, Janas survived a battle with cancer before taking the Polish manager's job from former national team colleague Zbigniew Boniek in 2002.

He is separated from the mother of his two children, to whom he was married for 20 years, and now lives in the western town of Wronki, where he is deputy chairman of first division club Amica Wronki.

REUTERS