[OFF THE POST/EURO 2008] Poland's national team coach has apologized to the German people after two Polish tabloids "declared war" on Germany in their preview of the nations' European Championship clash on Sunday. In photo montages, Super Express depicted Poland's Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker carrying the severed heads of German midfielder Michael Ballack and Coach Joachim Loew while Fakt turned Beenhakker into a sword-wielding warrior about to deliver a death blow to Ballack.

Fakt made references to the Poles' defeat of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

"We want to distance ourselves totally from these weird, dirty and sick people," Beenhakker said of the tabloids.

Marek Prawda, Poland's ambassador to Berlin, said, "This shows an idiotic lack of taste."

The tabloids invoked Germany's World War II atrocities against Poland.

Fakt is owned German media group Axel Springer.

Two of Germany's stars, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, are Polish born.