Eurosport - Fri, 13 Jun 13:26:00 2008
An injury-time penalty from Ivica Vastic earned co-hosts Austria a 1-1 draw against Poland at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna that keeps their hopes of progressing to the Euro 2008 knockout stages alive.
Naturalised Brazilian midfielder Roger Guerreiro put Poland ahead from close range in the first half after Austria had spurned a series of golden opportunities to take the lead.
Poland looked the more likely scorers for the majority of the second half, until English referee Howard Webb spotted an infringement in the Polish penalty area in injury time and the 37-year-old Vastic fired home from the spot.
The result ensured Croatia's progress to the last eight as Group B winners following their 2-1 win over Germany, and means Austria and Poland will both go into their last games needing to win to stand any chance of progressing.
Both sides made three changes to their starting line-ups in the wake of opening day defeats, with Poland handing a start to Roger and Southampton striker Marek Saganowski while Austria gave Umit Korkmaz a place in the starting XI after he impressed from the bench in the 1-0 defeat to Croatia.
Roared on by a raucous home crowd, Austria took the game to their opponents from the off but spurned three gilt-edged chances inside the space of five first-half minutes.
20-year-old Werder Bremen striker Martin Harnik missed the first two. On 11 minutes he seized on a loose pass from Marcin Wasilewski but saw his shot deflected wide of the right-hand post by Poland goalkeeper Artur Boruc, before a close-range effort from Korkmaz's left-wing cross was blocked by Boruc's legs.
Moments later Christoph Leitgeb got away from the Polish defence, but with time to pick his spot he too allowed Boruc to save.
Boruc came to the rescue again 10 minutes later when Austrian right-back Gyorgy Garics got round the back off the Polish defence, and having withstood the early storm Poland took the lead with their first attack of note after half an hour.
Ebi Smolarek picked out Saganowski at the back post with a cross from the left, and when Austria goalkeeper Jurgen Macho could only get a hand to Saganowski's shot, Roger was on hand to tap home from three yards to claim his first goal for his adopted country despite appearing to be offside.
Smolarek tested Macho with a left-footed effort five minutes into the second half after being found by Roger, while Macho produced another good save to block Jacek Bak's back-post half-volley with just under half an hour to play.
Macho was then called upon to tip over a ferocious left-footed free-kick from the tireless Jacek Krzynowek as Poland grew in confidence, and an equaliser looked a distinct unlikelihood until Mariusz Lewandowski was penalised for tugging Sebastian Prodl's shirt inside the box and Vastic kept his cool to drill the penalty to Boruc's right and seal a dramatic draw.
Comment 108 - 127 of 127
Hey !!!
I am Polish. My two cents about this matter are : This ref shouldn't be working in a such important venue such as
Eurocup . Maybe second division in England but that is it. He and his side referees suck ass.
Polish goal was scored from an offside position and that should not be a penalty. If you watched any previous games, you could see that that kind of behavior ( shirt pulling ) is present at any corner taken so far. It is ridiculous.
Yet no referees gave penalties . Especially in 90 +3 minutes. Sad, sad.
Saying that , Austria deserved to win this game 100 % as they were a better team that day. Just like in the game with Croatia. Now both Poland and Austria will be out .
Schade fur Osterreich
Szkoda dla Polski.
there are plenty Poles who are mad,they have right to be mad,if i were close to you somewhere i would split in to your face
Webb be careful
and whats wrong with you mr mazij?
did ur mother stop breastfeeding you to early or whats the matter about your manic anger about yesterdays result?
did you cry a lot? like a ten year old girl?
i had a lot of fun drinking and having a party last night
what happens here is absolutely ridicolous
its a @#$% game!!!!
i as an austrian feel quite sorry for all you polish people out there that didnt get enough brains to articulate their anger in a better way then calling all our players nazis, whores and whatever. you are just very poor.
something that until now i didnt read anywhere.
THE POLISH GOAL WAS OFFSIDE!
guerrero was a meter in front of the austrian defender. didnt anybody notice?
why didnt the side referee notice when he was standing at the corner point as you can clearly see on tv?
maybe it was because jürgen macho was in front of him... i don`t know, but i am person enough to grant this person a mistake!
well and the penalty. the scenes going on before the penalty were not okay. the ref could also have given the yellow card to the austrian forward. well he didnt...
but saying that the foul was not a foul is just ridicolous. it`s funny that a 1,95 man like sebastian proedl fell down because of this little @#$% that the polish player did, but thats PROFESSIONAL football. and as far as i can remember the austrian games of the last years, it rarely happened that austrians fell down when there was not a reason for it. you really can`t blame the austrian team for playing unfair in that context.
you could see that very well when ivanschitz fell down too late. he was fouled, and it would clearly have been a penalty if he fell just right in the moment that he was fouled. i think he didnt fall down right then because he still wanted the ball and wasnt clever enough to just fall. then it would have been a penalty and at least a yellow card.
the ref was weak! but he was blind to both sides.
polish people dont blame aus for being nazis. its just ridicolous and childish
to: darrenseal73
Of course I can deny.:D
"dragged him to the ground" ??? are you blind??
even if he was dragged to the ground he did not take part on action.
If you think this was a foul you are ten year old girl and you have started watch games yestarday.
btw., darrenseal73, everybody know that wasn't foul exept you and of course some ten year old girls :D
discussion is - did webb do it, becouse he is a looser, or did he do it for money (not to help German:D)
You can't deny that the defender had grabbed the forward's shirt and dragged him to the ground. That has got to be a foul surely! I think the ref should be appluaded. Had the shoe been on the other foot the Poles would have claimed a penalty. Do you honestly think an English ref wants to help the Germans?
wtf are you talking about? who's stealing whose job? you are jealous thats all! job is given to a person who is good for it! if you can't get it but some Polish man can it mean that you suck! am i right? hell i am! sometimes i really think that is UK live bunch of stupid people after primary school olny! of course not every one! i don't want to offend all of English guys but when i read such a @#$%, my blood is boiling...
webb used to dream about being a plumber. then came the poles and ruined it all. they took his job as as he was nowhere near as good as the polish counterparts. he decided then to become an international ref and promised himself that he would buck the trend. he would make some extra cash without taxes. after completing a 2month internet course he ended up as a premiership referee...and out of the blue sky he got the post at the euro2008 and said to himself "thats a real opportunity".
And the 12 of june came...he knew he'd punish the poles for what they did. he also heard, what was even more revolting, that these freaking underhumans tended to eat swans from our beatiful pond nearby. he saw their tents and cook books. "what good is a cook book if you never ever go to tesco?" he thought to himself. nuff said.
Thank YOU, REF! We'll always LOVE U! :-*
We won Portugese
NO TO RACISM! Shame on you, Mr Webb.
Łysy chuj.
Good luck Howard Webb you will need it. Euro 2012 is in Poland... You have many enemy there now....
Pozdrowienia z Polski, my za was tyramy a wy nam dajecie takiego buraka za sędziego
Przecież on nie powinien sędziować III ligi. Apeluję do wszystkich Polaków
Spierdalamy z Anglii!!!!! Wydupa do Kambodży 1 godzina robocza = kilo bananów Hurra
Pozdrowienia z Polski, my za was tyramy a wy nam dajecie takiego buraka za sędziego
Przecież on nie powinien sędziować III ligi. Apeluję do wszystkich Polaków
Spierdalamy z Anglii!!!!! Wydupa do Kambodży 1 godzina robocza = kilo bananów Hurra
Being a half English half Polish borne and breed in London and having an admiration and understanding for both nations is rally disappointing to read all these nonsense here. First, only working class English people have a problem with Poles working in UK and “thieving” their jobs. The working class folks are indolent and poorly educated therefore easily manipulated by nationalistic, racial, xenophobic and fascist organisation and their tabloid press. Second, the idea of Common Europe is a great vision to prevent all of us on this old Continent from economical and cultural domination from America that is a source of stupidity, grid and cheep culture. Knowing and fully understanding this we ought to be proud and supportive as a Europeans and learn and willing how to make Europe our motherland as a whole with magnificent and colourful varieties of people, culture, tradition and cuisine. LONG LIVE COMMON EUROPE !!!
Being a half English half Polish borne and breed in London and having an admiration and understanding for both nations is rally disappointing to read all these nonsense here. First, only working class English people have a problem with Poles working in UK and “thieving” their jobs. The working class folks are indolent and poorly educated therefore easily manipulated by nationalistic, racial, xenophobic and fascist organisation and their tabloid press. Second, the idea of Common Europe is a great vision to prevent all of us on this old Continent from economical and cultural domination from America that is a source of stupidity, grid and cheep culture. Knowing and fully understanding this we ought to be proud and supportive as a Europeans and learn and willing how to make Europe our motherland as a whole with magnificent and colourful varieties of people, culture, tradition and cuisine. LONG LIVE COMMON EUROPE !!!
Sorry Marta, I forgot his name -why I referred to him as Brazilian. I should have used Polish naturalised Brazilian instead (but I wanted to keep my post short, so just used "brazillian"). Nothing was meant in my comment, other than to identify the off-side player.
ENGLISH PEOPLE stop saying that Polish stealing yours jobs!!! You don't have only Polish emigrants in UK! we are all in Europe and if somebody gets a job means that he was smarter then You not that he steal Your job! NOBODY GETS A JOB JUST BECAUSE OF HIS NATIONALITY!!! IF SOMEBODY SAYS THAT HE IS RACIST! There are also jobs which you just don't want to do, but Polish people do. How stupid You have to be to saying about stealing jobs, or swindling!?
m.mazij
With all due respect, m.mazij, I do not think you can afford making a "mistake" when you are chosen to be an international referee...
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