Stal Stalowa Wola – Lech Poznań 0:2

The Wednesday game was hosted at Izo Arena in Boguchwala due to the current renovations of Stal’s home ground. However, shortly before the kick-off time, poor condition of the pitch aroused doubts whether the match was going to take place at all, but in the end, the officials decided to give a green light and the referees initiated the game at 12:15 pm.

The opening minutes aligned perfectly for the team from Poznan because, within about 120 seconds, they were already one goal up. Gytkjaer and Tiba exchanged a few passes in front of the box, the Danish striker spotted Puchacz on the flank, and the latter beat the goalkeeper with an impressive lob. It seemed that the goal would give Lech peace of mind, however, with every minute the hosts were dominating the match more and more. Ciepiela played a key role in Stal’s offensive line and whenever the club was given a set piece, the player caused real problems to Lech’s defenders. Fidziukiewicz and Dadok had decent goal-scoring chances but neither of them managed to beat van der Hart whose interventions were flawless. The Dutch keeper performed extraordinarily well that day and if it wasn’t for him, the team would have conceded probably more than one goal. Lech had a few scoring opportunities too, but Marchwinski’s and Amaral’s attempts were off target.

In the second half, Stal kept on causing problems to Lech’s defensive line and van der Hart was forced to intervene when he found himself one-on-one with Fidziukiewicz. Finally, Lech started remaining in possession of the ball for longer periods and gradually scoring chances appeared. Dejewski had a great opportunity to set the score to 2:0 when he received a great cross from Puchacz, but his header was successfully stopped by the goalkeeper. Dejewski wouldn’t give up and remained active in the offensive line despite a few attempts off target. Finally, in the 69^th minute, he got a well-deserved goal. Tiba’s dribbling confused Stal’s defenders which gave him space to cross the ball into the box where Dejewski was waiting. This time he managed to place the ball in the net without problems. Since then onwards, Lech’s players moved deeper into the defense and protected the goal from their opponents’ attempts. Occasionally, the top-division side would counterattack but without success due to lack of precision and the goalkeeper’s great interventions.

The score remained unchanged, hence Lech won 2:0 and advanced to the round of 16 of Totolotek Polish Cup.

Stal Stalowa Wola - Lech Poznań 0:2 (0:1)

Goals: Tymoteusz Puchacz (2.), Tomasz Dejewski (69.)

Yellow cards: Przemysław Stelmach - Djordje Crnomarković

Stal Stalowa Wola: Krystian Kalinowski - Michał Mistrzyk (79. Kacper Śpiewak), Piotr Mroziński, Krzysztof Kiercz, Szymon Jarosz, Bartosz Sobotka - Przemysław Stelmach, Łukasz Pietras (75. Filip Wójcik), Bartłomiej Ciepiela (67. Michał Płonka) - Michał Fidziukiewicz, Robert Dadok

Lech Poznań: Mickey van der Hart - Jakub Kamiński (68. Lubomir Šatka), Tomasz Dejewski, Djordje Crnomarković, Volodymyr Kostevych - Joao Amaral (66. Karlo Muhar), Jakub Moder, Pedro Tiba, Filip Marchwiński, Tymoteusz Puchacz - Christian Gytkjaer (75. Paweł Tomczyk)