Poland: the game that gave Lewandowski the first goal and that forces Argentina to beat Mexico

It is not the one that has shown the best football. In fact, for many it is a martyrdom to see them. But Poland, with all its deficiencies on the pitch, achieved a vital victory (2-0) against the surprising Saudi Arabia and gets back into the fight in group C of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Mexico that will be played this Saturday, the Europeans are leaders in their area.

If football was fair, the Asians would have taken all three points to secure their qualification. But the most beautiful thing about this sport is exactly that: there is no justice, only goals are worth it. Because Arabia showed that Lionel Messi’s performance against Argentina was not a coincidence or anything like that.

At Education City Stadium, those led by Frenchman Hervé Renard dominated the game. The statistics show that they had more of the ball (64% over 36%), gave more passes and with better effectiveness (85%/76%), shot almost twice as many times on goal (16/9), but failed to make any goal. And everything can be explained by a single name: Wojciech Szczęsny, the goalkeeper who is considered “the best in history”.

With a strange name and the face of an office worker, the Juventus goalkeeper gave life to his team at all times. Just 14 minutes had gone by and Szczęsny was already the star after saving a powerful shot from Mohammed Kanno, the midfielder who plays alongside André Carrillo at Al Hilal.

The first 30 minutes were all Arabian. With a plan similar to the one they carried out against the Albiceleste, the green team locked up Robert Lewandowski, marking him with up to four men and with a rough game on the limit between the yellow ones. However, a clear arrival in Poland was enough to put them up on the scoreboard.

On 39 minutes, a jaunt down the right sector found Robert in the center of the box, well contained by goalkeeper Mohammed Al Owais. However, the star from Barcelona hunted down the rebound, raised his head and assisted Piotr Zielinski to make the net explode. A goal that was a lot of prize for the Europeans and too much punishment for the Asians who even missed an unbeatable goal situation that could change history.

When the clock marked 43 minutes, and while Poland settled in after celebrating their goal, the center-back Bielik committed a foul on Al-Shehri in his area that caused an alarm in the VAR room, the technology that has influenced ten penalties in Qatar 2022. The referee Wilton Sampaio does not charge it, but is called to see the screen to say. A subtle infraction (if it is an infraction) that was charged the same.

Al Dawsari, one of Argentina’s executioners on the first date, stood in front of the ball and kicked. Szczęsny, who was in advance and no one in the VAR noticed, stopped, leaving a short rebound that Al-Burayk tried to take advantage of by finishing first, but the goalkeeper became huge again, covering it purely as a reflex and giving life to his team -and by the way to Lionel Messi and company-.

We were waiting for you Robert

When Saudi Arabia was closer to the tie, cornering Poland in their goal, Robert Lewandowski appeared, the excellent scorer, breaks records at club level, who had never been able to celebrate a goal in a World Cup. With this it was his fifth game, counting the three in the group stage in Russia 2018, his team had won, tied and lost, but the goal did not open for him.

At 82′, the striker took advantage of an unusual mistake by defender Almalki, who poorly controlled a ball and left it served for him to define with his left foot and score his first goal in football’s greatest event. A world-class ‘9’ couldn’t go any longer without a goal in the World Cup. He didn’t deserve it.

Excited by his goal, Lewandowski missed what could have been his double. He wanted to sting it before the Saudi goalkeeper left and the shot went very low. But even so, he celebrates the victory that puts Poland as the leader of group C with 4 points, one more than Arabia. Argentina, last without any unit, must beat Mexico (3rd with 1 pt.) to play their grand final against the Europeans.

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