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Poland fail to progress from Group B - Euro 2008 | Help spread the word: Share on Facebook 
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The psychological scars of Austria’s last minute penalty in their second Group B game arguably proved to be too big a hurdle in approaching this game for the Poles. The post-mortem of their Euro 08 failure begins as they board the early plane home.Croatia 1 Poland 0 - Group B - Euro 08 16th June (Klasnic) The 1 – 1 draw with Austria resulted in a complex and unexpected set of results required from the final two games within Group B for Poland to progress. They faced a much changed Croatian side who had already qualified for the Quarter Finals, but knowing even a victory may not be even enough. Croatia were competent in an even contest, in terms of possession, and edged the match with a solitary goal scored by Klasnic in the 52nd minute. Arguably this was a fair result with Boruc of Poland being the busier of the two keepers. The post-mortem thereafter began on Poland’s first appearance in a Euro Championship finals with Coach Leo Beehhakker conceding his big-name players had been unable to perform to their potential, saying the players and management were disappointed and had expected and obviously wanted to do better. After an impressive qualifying campaign in which they won their group that included Portugal, Belgium and Serbia, they were unable to replicate the form at the finals and despite some bemoaning of the bad luck experienced at the Euro 08 tournament, Beenhakker stated that his squad were ultimately not good enough to handle this level of competition this time around. He further suggested that it was time to go back to the drawing board and training pitch to become more competitive at the finals of a major competition. George Parker Fancy writing for LiveFootball? Click here to find out more. |