Euro 2012: Poland 1-1 Russia - Poland Give Themselves Chance of Qualification

A sublime goal from the difficult to spell and just as difficult to copy and paste Jakub Blaszczykowski helped manage salvage a point and a potential group progression for Poland who suffered from the same issues as they did in the curtain raiser against Greece. Despite starting with almost overwhelming tenacity Poland failed to overcome a Russia side who still impressed, but seemed to lack their cutting edge against a side slightly more well drilled than the Czech team they faced on the opening night. Poland pressured early on but waivered as the half progressed which allowed Russia to nick the games opening goal, a dangerous free-kick from the Arsenal-fan-baiting Andrei Arshavin allowed young Russian starlet Dzagoev to net his third of the tournament and continue to keep my Euro Dream Team at bay in our mini-league. The first half limped to a disappointing end, disappointing because the quality of football dropped and also because our pundits for the evening included Roy Keane who joins Adrian Chiles' face as another reason I would willingly pay double my licence fee to ensure football remained on BBC. The second half picked up where the beginning of the first half started and disappointingly left somewhere in the bowels of the 38th minute, Poland pressed high with the excellent Lewandowski being a constant threat for the Poles, who'd already had a goal disallowed in the first half for offside after a Barcelona-bettering display of passing football. They managed to score one that counted in the 57th minute however, Blaszczykowski finished off a fine passing move with a sumptious left foot strike in to the top corner which should go up there as one of the goals of the tournament so far. The game tailed off here, whilst both teams continued to attack neither really pushed the other further than they could handle, they both played good football but that match inevitably fizzled out. This leaves Russia with only a turn-up performance against Greece to qualify, and an all or nothing game for Poland against the Czech Republic to see if the hosts can reach the knockout stages.