Wojciech Szczesny says Blues keeper Bartosz Bialkowski fully deserves his first call into the Poland squad.
Juventus’s Szczesny and Lukasz Fabianski of Swansea are the two first-choice keepers in the squad, while Bialkowski is vying with Roma's Lukasz Skorupski to be the third keeper in the party which travels to Russia for this summer’s World Cup.
The Polish squad met up earlier in the week ahead of friendlies against Nigeria in Wroclaw on Friday and South Korea in Chorzów next Tuesday with Bialkowski hoping to make his international debut in one of those games.
Szczesny, who has been capped 32 times at full level, and Bialkowski have known each other a long time having been in the U20s squad a decade ago.
"I met Bartek about 10 years ago, when we played in the youth teams,” Szczesny recalled.
@1BartMan1 on his first international camp with 🇵🇱 Poland .
Nothing better than a fresh pair of Nova Spectre 😠pic.twitter.com/D7yezpIhvu– The One Glove Co (@TheOneGloveCo) March 20, 2018
"At the time, I thought he could be a goalkeeper for years for the national team. However, fate rolled so that I was in the frame for so long, and he appears only now.
"His example shows that everyone who plays well has a chance to jump into the national team. Has he changed a lot since the last time we were in a squad? Yes, he is better.”
Meanwhile, former Blues academy schoolboy keeper Nick Pope, now with Burnley, has been reflecting on his climb from non-league with Bury Town following his release at 16 to his England call-up for this week’s friendlies against Holland and Italy.
"It has been a real whirlwind for me,” he told The FA.com. "If you look back six months, and if you said what has happened since, you wouldn’t believe it.
"I can still remember playing my first ‘adult game’, which was for Bury Town reserves, and just thinking how different this is to playing academy football.
"I’d just been released by Ipswich Town’s academy at 16. They were my boyhood club. At the time, you are devastated and it’s a feeling that you never forget.
"You can get low on confidence and self-belief which is everything you really need to play football so it was a difficult time for me.
"I couldn’t say I was massive back then and maybe I was a late grower, but I think they just decided that I wasn’t good enough and you know, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.
"I went off to college and met a new group of people there, I didn’t know anyone in the whole building when I began, so it was just like starting again and it was the change in my life that I needed. It was a new environment and it was perfect for me.
"On the football side, playing for Bury Town, it was a bit of a wake-up call as to how the game is so different at that level and outside of the academy bubble.
"It’s proper football and it was a definite moment of realisation for me and after that, I looked at everything differently.”
He added: "It’s only been my first experience of Premier League football this season so I’m learning weekly and learning on the job and trying to build on each performance.
"But to be even in with a chance of going to the World Cup, it’s something that at the start of the year, I wouldn’t have even dreamt about or been written about by anyone, let alone me. Now I’m here, I’ve got to enjoy it and just prove myself.”