Warsaw  - Former Poland coach Leo Beenhakker said in an interview published on Friday he was shown little respect during his recent dismissal and that the country's football lagged behind Europe because of lack of progress in schooling and training.

Ordinary elderly people had shown him more respect in his three years in Warsaw than his bosses, the Dutchman Beenhakker told the daily Rzeczpospolita.

Beenhakker was fired late Wednesday after his team's 3-0 defeat in Slovenia in what the Polish football association (PZPN) head called one of the "weakest games" for the team in a decade.

The loss to Slovenia shot down hopes that Poland would qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

But the coach said his players' kind words restored his faith in his work when news came of his dismissal. He said none of the players spoke to a Polish football association (PZPN) official when he visited the locker room after the Slovenia match.

Polish football supremo Grzegorz Lato had said after the match on television that the game against Slovenia was Beenhakker's last in charge.

Beenhakker said he learned of his dismissal from a TV news reporter.

"That shows more about him than about me," Beenhakker said at a press conference. "I intend to go out the front door with head held high."

Lato apologized Thursday, saying "pressure, stress, nerves" were to blame for his statements.

Beenhakker was the first foreigner to coach Poland in 2006 and took the team to the Euro 2008 finals.

Beenhakker said his work was a great pleasure until the Euro event and that he worked well with former football association head Michal Listkiewicz.

But he said things went downhill when the association elected new leadership and people tried to manipulate him while offering little support to bring change in the sport.

Beenhakker said Polish football was stagnating while Europe and the rest of the world moved forward because they had proper training and football schooling. He said that Poland for instance still used a communist-era handbook from 1988 to school its trainers.

Beenhakker told Rzeczpospolita that he currently has no plans, but can't imagine life without football.

He called Poland a sleeping giant with just as much talent as in major footballing countries.