Match #31, 2018 World Cup: Colombia vs. Poland - 6/24/18

Cute

 

That makes 2 Tricolores from SA that beat Poland at the World Cup.

 

What poland did to be ranked eight in the rankings?

 

Be located on the same continent as Germany Italy and Spain.

 

avoided a lot of useless friendlies

 

FIFA rankings have always been garbage. Good thing they are changing the formula. Hopefully they will get better, because they now have serios consequences with the seeding at world cups.

 

Haha it would never happen in FIFA. You would have pressed r1 y and James would have kicked it back to his goalie. Scripting is real

 

Japan was so lucky to play Colombia with 10 men...11 men Colombia would crush Japan easily...Hopefully Poland decide to lose and the other game will be very entertaining...

 

They actually had a great qualifying campaign and have had good results in the past two cycles + at Euro 2016 (made it to the quarterfinals).

I'm not saying Poland's ranking wasn't too high (sides like Spain, England, Croatia, maybe even Switzerland are realistically way better, but weren't seeded), but this Polish team, when it plays well, is quite decent and certainly not the worst UEFA side of the tournament on paper.

The problem with them almost always seems to be a lack of guts, mentality and psychologically breaking down after one bad game, even with different generations in the past 15+ years. WC 2002, WC 2006, Euro 2012 (hosts), this year... Those are all cases I can remember of Poland coming into a big tournament after a good qualifying campaign, being drawn into a seemingly favorable group, and then just failing miserably against opposition they clearly were capable of beating had they played on their qualifying stage level.

With Poland, it's often looked to me like they just give up and stop believing in themselves after one bad game. Yesterday, they looked psychologically broken and out of it halfway into only their 2nd game of the tournament, trailing only 0-1 at the HT.

Compare them with Sweden and Denmark, for example, which currently have pretty average sides that don't play very flashy football (I'd say they're perhaps weaker on paper than Poland), but they have guts, guile, a fighting mentality, and are both very much still in the fight for advancing to the next round, and have certainly looked a lot more competitive then this Polish side.

I don't want to look like I have something against them personally, but Poland almost always seem to disappoint at the big stage.

 

Yeah, they actually contained Colombia very well up until half time. It was actually pretty even. Yes, Poland lacked penetration, but the total lack of belief was evident when they left the field. Instead of motivated for the second half they conceeded the game to Colombia before they entered the second half.

It was also telling after that second goal - there was a loose pass in midfield. One of the Polish players threw up his arms into the air as if to say: Who cares? and didn't even bother to run up to it (he would have made it). The other Polish player looked at the ball rolling and for I moment there it looked like he would just let it roll for a Colombian throw-in, but at the last minute changed his mind and ran up to the ball.

No fight whatsoever.

I do find it amusing though how Polish players claim they were unlucky vs Senegal, even though they were outplayed. Yes, the two goals were fortuitous, but Poland never really looked like they were in the game. Even when they scored Senegal had no issue in closing out the game.

This is very much a mental issue.

 

Not play as cowardly as their coach has been lining them up at the World Cup, and having their defensive leader (Glik) their to anchor the back three that underpinned a lot of their good play.

In qualifying, they displayed some very nice & ambitious football around their slick young midfielders, Zielinski & Linetty. But it seems like the injury to their defensive anchor scared their coach into playing a much more negative style at this tourney...a style which has left Lewandowski a lot more isolated than he usually is for them, that hasn't let Zielinski shine, and has deprived Linetty of opportunity...while relying on more veterans in other positions to compensate for that lack of experience in defense despite there having better options in those other spots. Pisczek starting their first match over that Sampadoria RB being a perfect example of this self-harm for experience that their coach has done to cripple them.

Their play has been a huge disappointment to me...even if I had Colombia topping this group & picked Senegal to advance in second after the Glik injury rulled him our for the first two matches. The poles haven't quite been as disappointingly cowardly as the Moroccan coach had his team play in the second half against Iran, but they've still been very disappointing.

That said they never should've been as high as 8th, somewhere around 15 would've been fair given the way they qualified, but FIFA-rankings gunna FIFA-rankings *shrug*