After Udinese’s heavy loss to Fiorentina, Udinese Tonight interviewed Adam Buksa. He discussed last week’s match in Florence, the period the team is going through, how he has settled in in Italy, his career around the world and a lot more.
Buksa started the interview by stressing how disappointed he was with the overall performance in Florence: “We’re disappointed. Such a loss is unacceptable. We lack maturity and some stability. We have potential: we won against teams like Napoli, Inter and Atalanta, but we made too many mistakes against Fiorentina. We went over the match again; we know what our mistakes were and now we must prepare our game against Lazio in the best way possible.” The Polish centre-forward also thanked the Udinese fans who were at the stadium last Sunday: “I want to thank the Udinese fans who came to Florence. It’s a shame we lost, but winning against Lazio could be a nice late gift to them.”
Adam did not try to justify Udinese’s loss and defended his team-mate Maduka Okoye: “In the first 10 minutes we dominated the match. Being left with a one-man disadvantage obviously didn’t help us, but we still could’ve played well with 10 players. Okoye made a mistake, but we win and we lose as a team. We are not upset with him. He will help the team many times again in the future.” At the same time, he does not believe that the team have relaxed much after their win over Napoli: “We always focus on our next game. We’d worked well the week after our match against Napoli. We were focused on Fiorentina and I didn’t see any negative signs leading up to the game.”
Buksa joined Udinese last summer because coach Kosta Runjaic really wanted him: “He had already contacted me back in June and right away I wanted to join the team. I knew him very well. I knew that Udinese was a good club, so I was completely certain that I wanted to accept the offer.” Since the Polish forward knows the coach very well, he is the perfect person who could tell us a few things about Runjaic: “He hasn’t changed since he used to coach Pogon. He still has very high standards. The Italian league is very different from the Polish. I had to work hard to adjust at a tactical level, but I think I’m doing well.”
Buksa has been getting used to playing in Serie A: “The Italian league is very difficult for forwards. I still need some time to fully settle in, but I’m making progress. I’m happy to be here, but I can and I must play better. A single goal isn’t enough; I want to score more. That’s why I’m here. I need to be patient and be ready when I have to do my part. It’s always easier when you’re in the starting line-up, but we have many forwards in the squad and everyone wants to play. Now [Keinan] Davis and [Nicolo] Zaniolo are playing; they’re great players and they’ve scored a total of eight goals. I have to wait for my chance.”
This is not, however, Adam Buksa’s first time playing in Italy. In fact, he played for the Novara U19 team in the 2013/14 season, which explains why he’s so proficient in Italian: “I was sixteen years old. I’ve spoken Italian since then and now I’m studying it again. I played for that team for 10 months; it was a great adventure that helped me grow both as a man and as a player. I’m happy to be back in Italy.” Throughout his career, Adam has played for many teams: he’s played in Poland, the United States, France, Turkey and Denmark: “All the choices I’ve made were clearly motivated. I left Poland because I wanted to find a bigger challenge, so I went to the United States. Two years later, I went to France to play in an even harder league. I like challenges: I’ll play for a team for one or two years, I’ll do my job and then move to another country.” Right now, he likes where he is, both the team and the city: “I really like it here. I’m here with my wife, who will soon have a little girl.”
Apart from Udinese, Buksa also plays for the Polish national team, who like Italy will play in the World Cup play-offs in March: “We have to win two matches; the first one against Albania won’t be easy. We have a new coach and now we play differently. We’ll see what happens. Playing in the World Cup is my dream.” It would be even more of a dream come true if he could play alongside his hero, Robert Lewandowski: “Playing with Robert is easy, because there are always two or three defenders on him [laughs].” So does Buksa like playing alongside another striker? “I like playing in general [laughs]. I’ve played many times as a lone striker and in a strike partnership. I’m a target man; I like having a number ten like Zaniolo next to me, but I also like playing with another striker. It doesn’t matter.”
The interview ended with Adam’s goals for the season: “My goal is to grow as a player. While the team focuses on one match at a time, I focus on one training session at a time. I want to improve every day.” And he also made a promise: “If we win against Lazio, I’ll have frico with our fans.”