Poland 3:1 Azerbaijan

Highlights

Poland took another 3 points from Azerbaijan on Saturday in a tense match that saw Poland trail for the majority of it. Unfortunately for Portuguese and Serbian fans, Poland rallied back with goals by Smolarek and Krzynowek that were only minutes apart.

The surprise goal came only minutes in when the Azeri attacker was coming in from the wing against Boruc on a fairly tight angle. Boruc foolishly played for the pass (despite the Azeri player in front being covered) and allowed the attacking player to simply shoot it past him. It's obvious what Boruc was thinking, it's also obvious that he didn't give the player the respect he should have by failing to treat him as a threat from what he probably perceived as an angle he would not dare try to score from. Boruc had some gaffes later in the match too when he completely fumbled a ball and almost gave the Azeri a two goal lead! Thankfully he was at least lucky, since he definitely wasn't good.

But Poland did manage to make up for the goal. Now the Azeri will cry foul that the Smolarek goal was caused from a questionable free kick when Lobodzinski went down a little easily. Whether he did or not, it still took a great free kick and a pretty big mistake to leave Smolarek unmarked to allow for such a goal. The Azeri were no angels in this department either, with at least half a dozen times finding the ground against a fairly disciplined Polish team.

The third goal was the highlight of the match that saw Saganowski downright embarrass the Azeri defender and Krzynowek for seconds later to do the same. That gave Krzynowek a hand (or a foot more accurately) on every goal scored for Poland.

What is surprising is how Zurawski could be considered the 'captain' on this team ahead of Krzynowek, which proves that even Beenhakker is not as flawless a coach as he may come off. Zurawski who unsurprisingly had to be pulled from the match in favour of Saganowski. Surprising in one sense though as Zurawski was quite invisible all match, or rather, the portion that he accounted for.

Poland's next match is on Wednesday in Armenia. Saganowski should have earned a spot in the starting 11 for that match, while Zurawski and Rasiak should have earned spots keeping the bench warm.