Saturday, 19 October 2013

World Cup Qualifier: San Marino 1-5 Poland



10th September 2013
San Marino 1-5 Poland
World Cup Qualifier
Stadio Olimpico, Serravalle, San Marino


Oh my!  Oh net bulging, goal scoring, my!  They only went and scored a goal!  And not just any old goal either, but an equalising goal.  I could only have been bettered if they’d actually taken the lead.

Alessandro Della Valle is the man of the moment, with San Marino’s first competitive goal for five long years.  Let’s celebrate this for all it’s worth – it could be a while before this happens again...

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So Poland went on to win 5-1?  So what?  Frankly I don’t care, because that one moment is something that San Marino have had to wait a hell of a long time for.

Want to know about Poland’s goals?  Ok, here’s the rest of the action...

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Piotr Zielinski opened the scoring after 10 minutes before Della Valle’s glorious equaliser.  It was 3-1 by the break however through Jakub Błaszczykowski and Waldemar Sobota.  Zieliński and Adrian Mierzejewski finished off the scoring after the break leaving Poland three points off leaders England and two behind Montenegro and Ukraine, and still with a sniff of a play-off chance.

Naturally, having been the victims of a San Marino goal, the Polish coach Waldemar Fornalik pretended to be happy but wasn’t overly thrilled...

“We did the job, which was to beat San Marino.  The game went well, particularly the first half, when we went on the offensive, but once again some of our old mistakes were made in the defence.”

The group table now looks like this...

England                                Pl. 8        Pts. 16
Ukraine                                8              15
Montenegro      8              15
Poland                  8              13
Moldova              8              5
San Marino         8              0

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