Poland beat Sweden 2-0 to secure a place in the World Cup finals
CHORZOW, Poland, March 29 (Reuters) – Poland’s Robert Lewandowski and Piotr Zielinski scored in the second half to book a place in the World Cup finals in Qatar with a 2-0 victory over Sweden in an electrifying playoff match on Tuesday.
The Poles struggled to hold back a Swedish side with youthful attacking power, but in the end the experience told when Lewandowski and his teammates took advantage of mistakes.
After a shaky opening, the Swedes quickly grew into the match and winger Emil Forsberg should have given them the lead, but Wojciech Szczesny pulled off the first of a series of fine saves and turned the ball behind to a corner in the 19th minute.
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The home team also had a hard time when Sweden striker Dejan Kulusevski came close twice before the playoff final turned on a clumsy mistake by Jesper Karlstroem.
The Swedish midfielder missed a challenge in the box early in the second half and it ended with the Polish substitute Grzegorz Krychowiak bundled to the ground, with the Italian referee Daniele Orsato who immediately pointed to the spot.
Poland’s captain Lewandowski stepped up to send Robin Olsen in the wrong direction when he confidently hit his low kick into the net for his 75th international goal.
The Swedes threw cautiously against the wind and scooped forward, with Szczesny smartly going down to deny Forsberg again and Victor Lindelof sent the resulting corner just outside with a blinking nod.
Just as the visitors’ central defense should have had no trouble clearing the pass to Kristiel Olsson, but the Marcus Danielson player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead.
The Swedes brought their record shooter Zlatan Ibrahimovic off the bench in the last 10 minutes, but Szczesny and the Polish defense held on to a capacity audience to secure their country’s place in the World Cup.
Defender Kamil Glik was happy to be at the top of the playoffs.
“It was new for all of us – for me, for Robert (Lewandowski), who had played many matches but he had not played one like this, none of us had done it. It was a very tough match from this point of view,” Glik , who played with a muscle injury, told Polish TV.
“I was not interested in what would happen tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week, next year. Everything that mattered was here and now. We won and I am very happy,” he added.
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Reporting by Philip O’Connor, further reporting by Anita Kobylinska; editing by Pritha Sarkar and Ken Ferris
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