Poland Loses to South Africa

Today, Poland lost 0:1 (0:1) in a friendly game against South Africa in Johannesburg. This was the first time the two teams have ever met. The winning goal was scored Thembinkosi Fanteni in the 6th minute.

Poland had significant problems with assembling a team for this friendly. For various reasosns, ten players were not able to participate in this friendly. For those who did travel with the team to South Africa, Łukasz Fabiański and Wojciech Łobodziński obtained injuries, and Jakub Wawrzyniak had to leave South Africa as he was handed a 3 month bad for using a banned substance.

The match could not have started any worse as in the 6th minute, the South African's cracked our defense. Fanteni received a perfect pass from Parker and he put the ball into an open net.

Poland's first shot on net didn't come until the 22nd minute when Peszko hit a long strike that caused little concern for the South African keeper.

The most visible player on the field for Poland in the first half was Rafał Murawski who in the 40th minute went past 2 defenders into penalty box before a third defender kicked the ball out.

The game didn't change much in the 2nd half even though substitutions were made. One of the more disappointing displays was that of Roger Guerreiro. Poland counts on his creativity and passing to open up the play. He did not do any of that and had trouble making accurate passes.

Although a better display was expected from Poland, this was a group of players assembled because of other players not being able to play. As a result, this was not a team that knew how to play together and it showed on the field.

South Africa - Poland 1:0 (1:0)
Goals: Thembinkosi Fanteni 6
Referee: Tendayi Bwanya from Zimbabawe
Fans: 8000

South Africa: Itumeleng Khune - Siboniso Gaxa, Aaron Mokoena, Matthew Booth, Innocent Mdledle - Steven Pienaar (76-Siphiwe Tshabalala), Kagisho Dikgacoi, Benson Mhlongo, MacBeth Sibaya - Thembinkosi Fanteni (61-Katlego Mashego), Bernard Parker (88-Elrio van Heerden)

Poland: Łukasz Załuska - Jakub Rzeźniczak, Bartosz Bosacki, Michał Żewłakow, Jacek Krzynówek - Sławomir Peszko (46-Marek Saganowski), Rafał Murawski (60-Łukasz Trałka), Dariusz Dudka (79- Dawid Janczyk), Jakub Wilk (59-Marcin Komorowski) - Roger Guerreiro - Robert Lewandowski