Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
Poland were beaten at Stadion Narodowy as Portugal found victory at a relative canter, with a few points of the home side’s performance in need of stark improvement prior to the visit of Croatia on Tuesday.
Goals from Bernardo Silva, Cristiano Ronaldo and a Jan Bednarek own goal saw Roberto Martinez’s team run out deserved winners, save for a late Piotr Zieliński strike to reduce the deficit to one and a potential penalty on substitute debutant Michael Ameyaw, which happened mere seconds before Bednarek stretched out to prevent a Diogo Jota tap-in but merely scuffed it into his own net instead.
There were familiar problems defensively for Poland evident particularly with the first goal they conceded, an inability to track midfield runners meant there was little that could be done after the initial ball was received and nodded back to the onrushing Bernardo. As for the second, Rafael Lead simply glided past most of Poland’s right hand side, with his effort kindly deflecting off the bar into the path of Ronaldo.
Thanks to the introduction of Kacper Urbański with about 15 minutes to go in the game, less than two minutes later he had helped set up Zieliński to make for an exciting finish to the game.
Indeed had Poland been awarded a penalty for a clumsy Nelson Semedo challenge on Ameyaw, the game could’ve ended up as a fortunate draw for the Biało-Czerwoni. As it was, Portugal countered and had Bednarek not slid in to intercept the square ball which he turned into his own goal Jota would’ve rounded the game off anyway.
Speaking of said challenge, it was very much the sort of challenge that had the referee given it, it would not have been overturned. Frustratingly, the referee was very consistent in that tackles from behind throughout the game were fouls, apart from this sole example which was perhaps the most important one from a Polish perspective.
Sad to say they were a few issues which need ironing out by Michał Probierz before Tuesday, not least the more structural issues when it comes to the defence. Personnel-wise, the debuting Maxi Oyedele coped well to start with, but quickly lost his confidence after Poland went down 0-2 and a misplaced pass which went for a throw-in during the second half really rather summed it up.
Paweł Dawidowicz and Sebastian Walukiewicz struggled, and Przemysław Frankowski continued to do little to change the opinion that he has not played well since the springtime. If I was Probierz, I’d be looking to recall Matty Cash at the earliest available opportunity, but who knows whether that will come to pass or not. Able to speak Polish or not, Cash would be a sure improvement on what we’ve seen of Frankowski recently and Saturday night might’ve been the last nail in that particular coffin.
Positives? Karol Świderski had a good first half, the midfield seemed to work well together with both Oyedele and Jakub Moder sitting deepest. Nicola Zalewski was the usual strong performer he has been for Poland and save for the own goal Bednarek was another strong performer, certainly more than the other defenders he started the game with.
In terms of who should be dropped in favour of others for the clash with Croatia, it seems clear that Jakub Kiwior and Kapcer Urbański should start, and someone should replace Frankowski. Perhaps starting Moder instead of Oyedele, for the time being, is also the wiser choice.
No doubt the post-mortem of this will continue, and there are areas for Poland which need to improve fast, but it’s hard to start criticising Probierz so readily after the progress made in the last year. Can you imagine the Poland set-up under Czesław Michniewicz or Fernando Santos scoring a goal against Portugal? I can’t, so I’ll give Probierz a little more time before laying into him as readily as some pundits already are.
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