LIVESTREAM: Team Poland Takes On Denmark at Olympic Training Centre in Poland

In their first action since losing a heartbreaking qualifying game to the Czech Republic last fall, Team Poland will host the Danish national team Saturday at  the Olympic Training Centre in Władysławowo, Poland in an international exhibition game.

In that 14-7 loss to the Czech Republic, which eliminated Poland from the IFAF Europe Group B qualification tournament, Poland had opportunities to score and in fact had one touchdown called back with seconds to go.

Poland had beaten both Belgium and Russia earlier in the year in tune-up games for their qualification game.

Poland’s second-year head coach Brad Arbon took over a team which had not played in two years, fashioning a 2-1 record in 2015 and giving people reason to believe that football in Poland has truly progressed.

Arbon has assembled a 45 man roster for this game, 14 of whom come from the Polish championship winning Wroclaw Panthers. A few of the regular starters will be missing from this game including it seems Panthers receiver Tomasz Dziedzic. Nevertheless, his brother,  Bartek Dziedzic will start at quarterback. The receiving corps will include deadly Patryk Matkowski from the Panthers. Matkowski had 210 yards receiving in the Panthers IFAF Europe Champions League title win against the Milano Seamen.

Denmark’s head coach Lars Carlsen, the international dean of national team head coaches, took over the reins in 2000 and has been a part of the national team program for both the senior and junior teams for 22 years.

Carlsen is looking at this game as a tuneup for next year’s qualification for Group A. Denmark finished sixth in the 2014 European championships in Austria and together with Sweden will play the winners of the IFAF Europe Group B winners.

“I see this game as a chance for all these players to get some playing time and for my new coaching staff to gel as a unit. I want the players to get as much playing time early in the game as possible. Then we will have an idea how they will perform under pressure in the second half.”

The Aarhus Tigers have the highest representation with 10 players listed with the Copenhagen Towers next with nine players.

Carlsen has picked Copenhagen Towers quarterback Kasper Skyum as his starter. This is no surprise as Skyum was the MVP of the Group B qualifications in Italy.

This game will be a good test for both teams. Denmark needs this to gauge how far they need to go to climb into the Euro 2018 Championship tournament.

Meanwhile, Poland’s fast developing national team program is looking to the World Games in 2017 to be held in Poland. American football is on the schedule.

Kickoff: 6 PM (12 Noon EDT)