Ecuador Beats Poland in Group A

The second encounter of Group A did not match the World Cup opener - not that anybody expected it would. You can't really say a great deal of things regarding the Poland - Ecuador game yesterday night. Both teams kind of dribbled the game itself, the only true chances of scoring being taken by the South-Americans. Unfortunately, the European side only recovered in the end, when it was a little bit too late to change anything. Still, they could have saved - with a proper amount of luck - the disastrous 2-0 at the end of the game. But it wouldn't have been right; not because the Ecuadorians were way better then the polish side, but because Poland played a poor game in terms of tactics.

What surprised us all was the way Poland started the match. With long crosses to their strikers, its play seemed more like a British one. As a consequence of that, Pawel Janas' players caused no problems to the strong Ecuadorian defense. The Ecuador defenders managed to block every one of the 11 corner kicks that Poland had during the game. 0 is the number of shots on goal after 11 corner kicks from the polish side.

More, the favorite's defenders - because we have to admit that Poland was considered the favorite in this game - were not paying attention to their opponents. A lot of mistakes from Polish players allowed Ecuador to score in the 24th minute, and have another 2 great chances until the break.

The second part saw an Ecuadorian side waiting for Poland, while trying to shoot decisively on the counter-attack. Having no trouble at all blocking their opponents' attacks, Ecuador managed to end the game in the 80th minute, after a great combination between their strikers. Augustin Delgado scored for 2-0 and, despite having some chances in the end, Poland had to settle for a first poor performance in this World Cup.

84 is the minute when Poland managed the first shot on goal in the game.

After the yesterday's results in Group A of the competition, here's how the table looks like:

Germany 3p 4-2
Ecuador 3p 2-0
Poland 0p 0-2
Costa Rica 0p 2-4

The next matches:

Germany - Poland (June 14)
Ecuador - Costa Rica (June15)