Image via @FifaWorldCup on Twitter
After scoring his first World Cup goal against Saudi Arabia on Saturday and putting in a solid hour of a performance overall, you would assume that Piotr Zieliński is going to be a big part of Czesław Michniewicz’s gameplan for tomorrow night’s tie against Argentina.
I’m not stating anything new by saying that Zieliński is a key part of Poland’s side and has been the one relied upon most after Robert Lewandowski to create goal-scoring opportunities, but I think how he performs against Argentina will be key to the result and a general barometer of how Poland will do.
We can assume that Michniewicz is likely to keep the same starting XI that he did against Saudi Arabia, given he made bullish comments in today’s press conference that anyone expecting his team to play for a 0-0 will be mistaken. Whether this turns out to be true or not we will only find out tomorrow night, but for now we’ll take it as read that he will use the same 11 players. Argentina on the other hand will probably have a different starting line-up to the one that played against Mexico, and look more like the XI that finished the game on Saturday night.
It’s the defensive side of Argentina against Mexico that gives me reason to believe Zielu will be the most important man for Poland, at least in an attacking sense. There were huge gaps between the defence and the midfield for Argentina, especially in the first half and at the start of the second against the Mexicans. Mexico weren’t really able to exploit this as they were immediately getting the ball to Vega and Lozano who were already up against that last line of defence, but if there is someone like Zieliński in that huge space between the midfield and the defence then the possibilities of Lewandowski being able to hold up the ball against a defender and the bombing runs of Matty Cash or Przemysław Frankowski getting in behind would be really threatening.
Of course, all this is merely conjecture and we don’t know whether Argentinian boss Lionel Scaloni will have tightened up this area of the pitch ahead of tomorrow night, but I think that the passes Zieliński picks in those areas, if they still exist tomorrow night, will have the biggest impact on Poland being an attacking threat against Argentina.
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