Another Wasted Opportunity

Wednesday was the day the group was supposed to be more clear and at least one team should have broken away from the pact. But instead, all the teams in contention drew one another and everything remains the same except that one more game has passed, everyone is up by one more point, and for some, another opportunity wasted.

Poland repeated with another lackluster effort just as they did in Portugal and their mediocrity continues with that being their 3rd consecutive match where they failed to pick up a win. But given how poorly Poland played in those matches, they should actually be happy they aren't on a 3 game losing streak instead.

Both Finland and Poland missed many chances with both hitting goal posts and having other narrow misses. Smolarek had a great opportunity to put Poland up 1 but credit to the Finnish keeper who just get enough of a touch to steer it away. There was not much else to report from that side of the pitch as Poland's offense was MIA yet again.

On the other side, although Boruc could have people fooled by the number of saves he made, he had a very poor match by his standards. I can't even recall the last time he made so many mistakes and looked so shaky with the ball. He had trouble catching routine balls, made a Robinson-like blunder (although luckily for him was at least further away from his net), and he also fumbled a ball coming right at him that led to the Finns hitting the goal post.

However the Finns were not all that impressive, in fact all the did was rely on long balls. What was unimpressive was how slow Poland's defenders were in catching up to them and containing them. Far too often they were trying to catch up. Although defense was poor, this was not what cost Poland the points.

I will however give credit to Boruc who did make an excellent game-saving stop in the late stages of the match that required him to be very focused, it was reminiscent of the goal Ecuador scored to open the WC against us, except this time it was stopped. Had it not been, the results could have been just as devastating.

The best chances in the match were the ones that were missed, as the ones that made it on net that weren't goal posts were often just harmless shots that did not give much trouble to either keeper.

A large portion of the blame must lay with Beenhakker on this match. Some of the decisions he made almost makes it look as if he hasn't been with this team for a year. Starting our best forward (Smolarek) in the midfield position while playing our best midfielder (Krzynowek) in the forward position was absurd. Krzynowek has definitely been hot in his last couple matches, but even with that said he is an aging vet who has done just fine from midfield...yet Beenhakker decided to tinker with two players who both had 4 goals a piece in qualifying - tops for the team and tied for 2nd in the group.

Although Beenhakker finally replaced the struggling (to put it lightly) Zurawski...he replaced him with Rasiak, a player who historically has only ever done well against poor opposition. Albeit Finland is not the cream of the crop, they're still too good for him to be expected to score. Mind-boggling to say the least, why Beenhakker made the choices he made.

In the end the match was lost because Poland didn't play to their offensive skills. When Poland plays well they dominate the match and get many scoring opportunities, they seldom are able to achieve good results by trying to play defensive or playing away from their game. Finland was not a time to try something new, rather, it was a time to go back to what had worked and rely on the guys doing what they have done all during qualifying.