Town goalkeeper Bartosz Bialkowski is still dreaming about the possibility of representing Poland in next summer’s World Cup finals being hosted by Russia.
It may seem like a long shot for the ex-Southampton and Notts County keeper, who did not featured for his country as they topped a qualifying group that also included Denmark, Montenegro, Romania, Armenia and Kazakhstan and bagged 25 points from their 10 games.
Premier League keepers Artur Boruc (Bournemouth) and Lukasz Fabianski (Swansea), along with former Arsenal number one Wojciech Szczesny, now with Juventus, and Roma’s Lukasz Skorupski, are all ahead of the Town number one in the international pecking order.
Bialkowski, who gained six U20 caps but has yet to make his senior debut, said: "Nothing has changed. It is still my dream to play for my country and it would be great if I could do it in the World Cup. But it’s out of my hands, even if I keep believing it might happen and I’m a big believer.”
If he doesn’t make it to Russia next year Bialkowski, at 30, could still be a contender for the 2022 finals taking place in Qatar, although he prefers to focus on life at Ipswich, knowing only too well it will be his club form that will trigger interest from national boss Adam Nawalka, should he need to introduce a new keeper to his squad over the next few months.
Bialkowski is encouraged by Town’s current place in the Championship, the win at Burton at the weekend ending a run of three successive defeats and leaving them in 10th place, just two points adrift of the top six and with a game in hand on eight of the nine teams currently above them.
The keeper added: "We still have a game in hand and, as things stand at the moment, if we win it we will be in a play-off position. We are in a good position and it’s a long season with a lot of games still left to play. All it needs is a good run of form and anything can happen.
"Every supporter wants to win every game and I truly understand that. Obviously, the fans were disappointed last week when we lost against Norwich and we all were. It was a massive game for the fans and us as well and maybe they felt we shouldn’t have lost it. But that’s gone now.
"I don’t know, I think we have to be a bit patient because we are in a good position at the moment. All it needs is a good run of form and a few wins in a row, and we’ll be back on track.
"We have some tough games coming up but the thing about the Championship is that they’re all tough.”
Bialkowski was also keen to put the record straight about claims that he has said he had been close to joining Premier League side Burnley in the summer, a move he insists was never on the cards.
Polish broadcaster TVP Sport quoted him responding to a question which referred to Burnley interest in the summer by saying, "It was really close but the clubs couldn't come to an agreement”. The story was subsequently picked up by TWTD and other UK media.
However, Bialkowski said that was news to him: "That was the first time I had heard anything about it. I never said I was close to joining Burnley. I had phone calls from other clubs, other managers, but I was never joining Burnley — never. I had to clear it up because it p***ed me off, if you like, a little bit.
"It was just a rumour but I had to clear it up [via Twitter] because it was being claimed that I said I was close to joining Burnley but that simply wasn’t true.
"I did an interview in Poland and I never mentioned Burnley. I said there had been interest in me but I never said anything about Burnley. If you listen to the interview there is no mention of Burnley — that was nonsense.”