Warsaw - The excitement is building before the Euro 2008 final on Sunday, but Poland's focus has already shifted to the 2012 edition. The mood looking ahead at the next championship - which Poland will co-host with Ukraine - isn't much cheerier than Poland's bitter defeat this year to rivals Germany at the hands of a Polish-born Lukas Podolski en route to a first round exit.
And the to-do list is daunting: remodeled stadiums and two built from scratch, a second metro line in Warsaw, more hotels, remodeled airports, thousands of kilometers of new roads and four years to spend 42 billion euros with Ukraine to turn two former Soviet bloc nations into football hosting powerhouses.
The nation rejoiced when Poland was picked over more experienced hosts for Euro 2012.
It was an unlikely choice, but officials hoped it would help Poland beef up its infrastructure and bring the football-zealous nation up to Western-European standards.
Somethought the event would restore Polish football prestige after a match-fixing scandal and UEFA warnings to not mix football with politics.
More than a year later, most Poles are still happy they are hosting the tournament. But some three-fours are afraid the country might not be ready and four years isn't long enough to prepare, according to a recent poll from the Public Opinion Research Center.
Last year UEFA officials said Poland wasn't making enough progress in building stadiums, hotels, roads and airports, the daily Dziennik reported, because of politics, frequent changes in Sports Ministers and lack of a defined plan of cooperation between the government and the Polish football federation.
This year hasn't been easy, either.
In January, UEFA president Michel Platini warned organizers of "critical slippages" in redying for the championships, saying the months ahead would be critical, and gave organizers another "wake-up call" in March.
But things are moving in the capital, where more than 100 stilts were pounded into the ground to test stability of the future site of the National Stadium. The stadium - host for the first match of Euro 2012 - will be built on top of a decrepit, communist-era venue that was considered one of the world's most beautiful in 1955.
The old stadium began falling apart in the 1970s and now hosts a giant bazaar on weekends. The new stadium has a price tag of 1.2 billion zlotys (559 million dollars) and will hold 55,000 people.
City officials have also promised a second metro line that would transport crowds of sports fans to the new stadium across the Vistula River from downtown Warsaw.
The lowest estimate for the job is 5.8 billion zloty. The city now has about half the amount needed and recently scrapped some projects to save money.
Sports Minister Miroslaw Drzewiecki says the stadium in Warsaw is a top priority, Polish Radio reported, but there's also not enough hotel rooms for VIPs in Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan.
More recently Scotland offered its services if Poles couldn't make the deadline. Rumors in the Italian press said Platini would give the championships to Italy and France as Polish officials offered reassurances that everything would be ready.
Then came rumors Ukraine was in grave danger of losing the championship altogether and Poland was in the market for a new partner.
One Polish politician decided to see Ukraine's stadium for himself, and paid for the trip out of his own pocket. The stadiums aren't so bad, he said, and Drzewiecki was equally optimistic in saying Poland was ready to help its neighbor get ready.
But despite the assurances and doubts, impatient football fans will have to wait. Platini has the last word, and says the final decision will come in the fall.
