Lewandowski failed to score in any of Poland’s three Group C games in France, including Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Ukraine, but Poland still advanced as runners-up with seven points.
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“He’s a player that helps us”.
Poland’s Robert Lewandowski reacts. He plays in a supportive role in every possible way and sacrifices himself for the team. “It’s just a matter of time for him, he’s creating a lot of chances, and I think he’ll score in the next match”.
Nawalka dismissed any concerns, though, and praised his number nine’s all-round display.
Ukraine looked shell-shocked but, unlike in their previous two 2-0 defeats by Germany and Northern Ireland, they settled down, got stuck in and should have scored themselves when Andriy Yarmolenko bore down on Lukasz Fabianski but then blazed wide. It’s a very good result, we haven’t conceded a goal and we are still going forward. After making a fast start they allowed Ukraine to dominate possession – the final statistic was 62% in the Ukrainians’ favour – and they certainly did not close down midfield space as diligently as in the goalless draw with Germany.
“It was fairly impressive that we got seven points from three matches in a hard group, we didn’t concede a goal, maybe we could have scored more”.
But they looked fired up again after the break and an incisive inside pass by Milik sent Blaszczykowski through and the substitute beat a defender before hooking the ball firmly beyond Andriy Pyatov. “We were losing control of the midfield and I wanted to reinforce that area”.
Tournament organizer UEFA has handed out more than a dozen fines at Euro 2016 to football associations whose supporters have let off flares and fireworks in stadiums.
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“Blaszczykowski is an important player for us, he’s very experienced and has a great influence on how we play – he proved that tonight”, the coach said. “They are one of the more interesting teams at the tournament and we are expecting a hard game but we have faith and optimism that we will go further”.
