POLAND PROFILE: A national team that relies almost entirely on the services of one adopted saviour? Courtesy of a certain gifted Nigerian and of being drawn into one of the weakest groups, the Poles could scrape through writes Paul Doyle

If you’ve been monitoring the history of Poland over the last few centuries you’ll be aware that its map seems to be in a state of permanent mutation - but did you know that its boundaries now stretch to include Nigeria?

As a football fan, you probably did, since no such person could have missed the fact that the Poles recent renaissance has been spearheaded by one Emmanuel Olisadabe, a Nigerian who was awarded Polish citizenship in July 2000 and repaid his adopted fatherland with two goals on his debut against the Ukraine. He has netted a total of 10 goals in 12 games for Poland.

Olisadabe is the undoubted star of the Polish team, even manager Jerzy Engel admits his side is mediocre without him. Now with Panathanaikos, he began his European career with Polonia Warsaw, and must fancy his chances of finishing it with one of the old continent's top clubs - after all, he has abundant assets and no obvious shortcoming.

While Olisadabe went to Poland to earn a living, almost all of his international team-mates left there for the same reason. The entire first-choice defence play in the Bundesliga, both Tomasz Hajto and Tomasz Waldoch at Schalke 04 and Tomasz Klos at Kaiserslautern. The rest of the squad is sprinkled through Germany, France, Belgium, and Austria, with goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek (right) excelling at Liverpool, and left-midfielder Bartosz Karwan the only domestically-based player guaranteed a regular start.

The Poles had even more cause to celebrate their return to the World Cup - for the first time since 1986 - when they were thrown into a unfeasibly shallow pool. South Korea and the United States are possibly the two worst teams in the entire tournament, so to find themselves alongside both of them is clearly a boon for Poland, who probably won’t even need to win against Portugal. Which is a good thing, because they’d be flattened by a team of such class.

Squad:

Goalkeepers
1-Jerzy Dudek (Liverpool/Eng), 12-Radoslaw Majdan (Goztepe/Tur), 22-Adam Matysek (RKS Radomsko)

Defenders
4-Michal Zewlakow (Mouscron/Bel), 15-Tomasz Waldoch (Schalke 04/Ger), 3-Jacek Zielinski (Legia Warsaw), 20-Jacek Bak (Lens/Fra), 6-Tomasz Hajto (Schalke 04/Ger), 2-Tomasz Klos (Kaiserslautern/Ger), 13-Arkadiusz Glowacki (Wisla Cracow)

Midfielders
5-Tomasz Rzasa (Feyenoord/Ned), 18-Jacek Krzynowek (Nuremberg/Ger), 21-Marek Kozminski (Ancona/Ita/D2), 10-Radoslaw Kaluzny (Cottbus/Ger), 17-Arkadiusz Bak (Widzew Lodz), 7-Piotr Swierczewski (Marseille/Fra), 16-Maciej Murawski (Legia Warsaw), 23-Pawel Sibik (Odra Wodzislaw)

Forwards
11-Emmanuel Olisadebe (Panathinaikos/Gre), 9-Pawel Kryszalowicz (Eintracht Frankfurt/Ger), 19-Maciej Zurawski (Wisla Cracow), 14-Marcin Zewlakow (Mouscron/Bel), 8-Cezary Kucharski (Legia Warsaw)