Poles have mountain to climb
Poland captain Jacek Bak admits his team are planning a ‘Great Escape’ from the Group A after losing 2-0 to Ecuador.
Bak knows the Poles will have to produce the performance of their lives against hosts Germany in their next game if they are to stay in realistic contention.
Bak said: “We are just going to have to try and escape from this situation. We have to win (against Germany) if we want to qualify – we will certainly have to do better than we did tonight.
“But playing against Germany when they have home advantage is going to be very difficult for us.
“They played well against Costa Rica (Germany won 4-2 in the tournament opener) and we can not expect them to be any easier when they play us.”
Team-mate Michal Zewlakow agreed, saying: “It was a game of mistakes and Ecuador made profit from our mistakes.
“We tried to get back in the game late on but we were unlucky,” added Zewlakow, whose team twice hit the woodwork in the closing minutes through substitutes Ireneusz Jelen and Pawel Brozek.
“Sometimes you do not always get what you deserve in football and we were unlucky. Ecuador played a smart game and we have to give them praise for that.”
The Poles had been confident coming into the World Cup with hopes high that they could emulate their performance in the last tournament staged on German soil.
In 1974 – two years after winning the Olympic football gold medal in Munich - the Poles finished third and boasted the tournament’s top goalscorer in Grzegorz Lato.
