International Career
Dudek received his first call-up for Poland in 1996 as an unused substitute during an exhibition game against Russia in Moscow, and won his first cap in February 1998 in another friendly, against Israel. He also captained the team once in a friendly against Estonia.
Dudek played nine of the national team's ten 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifiers as it finished top of its group, and started in the finals in Japan and South Korea, in an eventual group stage exit. He also played in seven of his country's ten qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup, but owing to a lack of appearances at club level during the season, he was dropped from the starting line-up in favour of Artur Boruc and left off the final squad as a result, at which point he had earned 56 caps.
Dudek's omission from the World Cup squad was greeted with shock among Polish fans and media alike, with one newspaper's headline reading 'Has Janas gone mad?!'. During a warm-up match against Colombia, where both Boruc and Tomasz Kuszczak were at fault for each of the goals in a 1–2 home defeat, the angered Polish fans started to chant Dudek's name as a reminder of what they perceived as a mistake by Janas to drop him. It is worth noting that the goal Kuszczak conceded, which prompted the chants, was directly from a goal-kick from the opposing goalkeeper Neco Martínez.
Following the World Cup, Dudek returned to the national team to play in two internationals under new boss Beenhakker, a 0–2 friendly defeat in Denmark and a 1–3 UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying defeat against Finland at home, before being dropped yet again. Despite a period of three years in the wilderness, he always believed that he would return to the national team and, in September 2009 he was called-up to the squad for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers against the Czech Republic and Slovakia by interim manager Stefan Majewski: after being on the bench for the first match in Prague, which saw Poland's slim World Cup hopes shattered, Dudek won his 59th cap against the latter on 14 October, in Poland's final competitive game before Euro 2012: in a match which was played in heavy snow and in front of a near-empty Stadion Slaski in Chorzów, he was denied a clean sheet by a Seweryn Gancarczyk own goal, as Poland lost 0–1.
Read more about this topic: Jerzy Dudek
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