21st June, 2024
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Austria thrashed Poland 3-1 on Friday to brighten their chance of qualification for the Round of 16 at Euro 2024 in Germany.
Austria opened the scoring nine minutes into the game. Phillipp Mwene displayed his great technique and produced a beautiful lofted cross deep into the box. Gernot Trauner got onto the scoresheet by superbly heading it into the top left corner.
Poland equalised 30 minutes into the encounter. Jan Bednarek had a shot blocked, but the ball fell to Krzysztof Piatek who found some space inside the box and buried the ball into the bottom right corner to make the score 1-1.
In the 39th minute, Marcel Sabitzer received a neat pass inside the box and instantly thumped the ball goalward, but a defender made a last ditch block to deny him.
In the 42nd minute, Marcel Sabitzer collected a wonderful lead pass and created some space to smash the ball goalwards from long range. His shot went painfully wide off the left post.
Austria went ahead again in the 66th minute. Alexander Prass played a long ball to Christoph Baumgartner, who cut inside and unleashed a screamer into the bottom right corner.
Patrick Wimmer, in 75th minute produced a ferocious strike from the edge of the box. His dangerous effort towards the bottom left corner was blocked by Wojciech Szczesny, who pulled off a superb save to keep the ball out of the net.
Two minutes later, Austria made it 3-1 from the penalty spot. Marko Arnautovic won the battle of wills and sent an unstoppable penalty past Wojciech Szczesny into the bottom right corner.
In the 84th minute, Stefan Posch blew a good opportunity to score for Austria. He had a lot of space around him and fired a terrific shot from the edge of the box towards the left side of the goal, but the goalkeeper made a brilliant save and stopped the ball from going in.