PBP: Poland vs Greece: June 8 - National Stadium Warsaw [R]

this was probably a better result for Greece than Poland.. Poland have now lost their starting keeper for at least another match and blowing a lead playing a team that are a man down for almost an hour is not going to be much of a confidence booster... Greece will take a lot of heart from this...

poland still have 2 home matches to make up for it, but they froze badly in this match. greece again defy expectation and do enough to stay alive. keeps the group very alive.

Greece showed a great performance in the 2nd half,and if it wasnt that funny ref could have won this.

you mean the gk who jumped in the air out of his goal line even though his defender was covering the player and ended up letting his team conceed a goal ? or the one who costed them a pk and even the game if it went in ?

hopefuly whoever the sub gk is , he would be better and have a basic idea where he is exactly instead of going out for balls WAAAAY out from him and positioning himself badly the entire game , have you even seen him play for arsenal ?

From what my Polish friends tell me Przemyslaw Tyton is actually quite a talent and some people actually prefer him to Szczesny. At 21 he is vying for a starting place in PSV Eindhoven. And historically goalkeepers was never a problem position for Poland.

but yeah - better result for Greece. Poland probably wanted to win this one. Surprised the coach made no changes on the field to the Polish side in the second half.

To be fair the GK wasn't really at fault here. He had to foul to prevent a goal and he did. If anyone should be blamed it should be the defenders for falling asleep.

Coach Smuda said after the game: "I wanted to make a substitution earlier. Paweł Brożek was the player that I wanted to sub in but red card complicated things."

Damn, when will you noobs learn the difference between a miss and a save???

There there, I know, hard day to be a Polska fan right?

frustrated a little bit?

hmm... but then on the other hand, you could say he took one for the team by preventing what would have been a sure goal; as the Greek player would have surely scored and the penalty was saved,and at the end of the day, won the team a crucial point!

Actually no. It was a good and interesting game for an opener, which are usually lackluster. I will, however, get frustrated if Poland plays like they did in the the second half from now on...

I was really impressed by Poland in the first 20 minutes, they actually played with a lot of quality, but they sat back after that and gifted Greece a chance to get back in the game.
Greece looked pretty terrible (especially Samaras) but they were better when Salpigidis came on. Why wasnt he starting?

Good first day for the euros. Atmosphere and stadiums are really good. I'd forgotten what it was like to watch a major tournament without vuvuzelas

Just woke up from my "nap" after this game...
a couple of points
Polanski looked solid in the middle...which bodes well for the next two games...
Perquis was not bad either..should have scored in the first half....but his defense was solid and I have no complaints....Lewy and Piszczek were good as expected
Rybus was MIA...a bit tougher opponent than Andorra..

I thought Wojtek Szczensy and Smuda were absolutely abysmal today
Szczesny had no business leaving his line...absolutely no business...second play - red card was deserved

as for Smuda...absolutely amateur...wtf happened..did he even watch the game...no change in tactics...and no use of subs - Why was Grosicki not used? Wolski?..in post game, Smuda mentioned that he considered inserting Brozek into the game but the red card foiled his plans? really...you just could not adjust your game plan?....
let's hope our team psychologist plays Fifa on playstation so he can give some football insight to the boys

This alone deserves rep.

As for the rest, agreed. Rybus was a dud, and so was Smuda not recognizing that he should have brought on Grosicki and Wolski in the second half. But we all know that he is not a good "in game" coach, and he showed that today by being outcoached by the Greek guy. Yet this outcome was to be expected: I read a before the game interview with Smuda yesterday where he said that if the score is tied by the 70th minute he wasn't going to go for the win. I believe his strategy was to go all out in the first half, score as much as possible and then ride it out.

Szczesny messed up on the goal, but the red card foul was as professional as they come, and turned out to be a good decision. Most of us who follow the Polish NT know that there is no drop-off in quality in goal after Szczesny, and Tyton proved that today.

Lewandowski's goal, although not beautiful, was excellent from pure soccer point of view. Great pass, and an undefendable header.

I am pretty happy that the match wasn't boring and unwatchable, and had its share of drama. Sad that Poland didn't get the three points, but the group is still for the taking.

First 20-30 minutes was so nice then my bad dreams came true. We're becoming "WC2006 Ukraine" with this "pass to Lewa, maybe he will run 40 yards, then dribble 5 Greek players and score a cracker" except they had Sheva. Sheva or Lewa - whatever - this "tactic" simply sux ass. I think it will take about 15 minutes for Advocaat and his stuff to unscramble our way of play so they will have a lot of time to see Warsaw - good for you guys Smuda believes in his "Borussia Poland" utopia but I'm not sure that he realise that "Grand Trio" scored 65% goals of BvB because their team played wider and tried to break enemy's defense actually in another ways than only this famous but well-worn right flank, so in the result of this - they could create occasions much easier than today.
I had a feeling like Rybus could order a pizza on his left side of the pitch and nobody would notice that - especially our center mid's and Obraniak.

Brożek as a recipe for a standstill in our offensive? my heart's too weak for this shit. Give a rest for last 10-15 minutes to coated Lewy , who clearly don't sympathize with Schalke's Papadopolous so they were harsh for each other as always. Ok, but why Brożek? he played nothing in this season, because he was simply terrible, not because he was injured. No Wolski? no Grosicki?
Two fast mid's with decent ball control, who could surely make some trouble to tired Greeks, but Smuda simply lacked some balls when the situation went bad.

But... like my brother said - let's don't be so critical, it was pretty much exciting as for a game vs. Greece, the real moment of truth will be at thursday when we meet Russians - sounds cool for me, but I'm still not sure what to expect of our Eagles. One thing's sure - if Smuda wants to improve something in this team, he should start of his persona at first.

also because BVB has two of the best CB's in BL..if not all of Europe
and couple of guys named kagawa (now man u) and goetze....that helps...

but I agree with the rest of your post

Russians terrorized Czechs today.....I am not sure how Boenisch will be able to cope with the russians on the left....
but you are right the group is still for the taking...one positive note...we have never lost to any of the group team at home....
we wont have any sort of complex playing the russians...they are not germany or england

Ofc this is what I meant They're simply using another options in attack besides the right-flank. I didn't meant to discredit another players.

Maybe Obraniak is not Kagawa and Grosicki/Rybus are not Goetze, but they are quality players who can make the difference. The problem's in Smuda head IMO.

I'm afraid he will get smashed. On the other hand I don't want to see Wawrzyniak... Being Polish NT fan is so hard

BTW. I've been to Wroclaw yesterday. I had some nice fun with NORMAL Russian fans as well, but I saw many Russians with communist symbols that are forbidden in Poland. Actually I'm not sure who's more stupid - them or our wannabe-political-correct police. I've seen some family guys complaining about this to policemen and get ignored. Fans of Polish clubs boycotted EURO because they're in conflict with Polish FA and prime minister Tusk, but I know some of them from different clubs and they all say that this is some kind of provocation that cannot be unseen and if policemen didn't want to hear some peaceful chubby family guys who didn't want to get into any trouble because they were there with their wifes and kids, most of club hools are willing to "give communist pricks a lesson".

So, this is where ignorance drives you. This reminds me of this season Europe League clash between Legia & Spartak. Spartak fans ordered scarfs with some insults about Legia specially for the away game and then in Warsaw they were "very shocked" when they loose them or get their ass kicked.

Indeed...my friend...indeed...

what a moment that was

Both teams had one excellent half, either of them could have won but both should be happy they didn't lose.
Thrilling game that outweighted the lack of quality and it was a pleasure to watch.

Papastathopoulos is excellent at marking but referees keep punishing him without reason.
Avraam Papadopoulos was terrible but it seems i am the only Greek that believes so


We don't have much flair up front (at least not untill ninis manages to stabilize his performances at high level and fortounis,fetfatzidis gain more experience) so we try to take advantage of hard working salpingidis and the great positioning of Gekas in the box. There is also Samaras but he is pretty much crap

Tytoń PK save from the stands!!!