Euro 2012: Poland switch midfield, Russia stick to winners
Poland coach Franciszek Smuda on Tuesday opted to shake up his midfield for the Euro 2012 co-hosts' crunch match against a high-octane Russia, whose boss Dick Advocaat stuck to his winning formula.
Poland coach Franciszek Smuda on Tuesday opted to shake up his midfield for the Euro 2012 co-hosts' crunch match against a high-octane Russia, whose boss Dick Advocaat stuck to his winning formula.
Smuda favoured Auxerre midfielder Dariusz Dudka over Terek Grozny's Maciej Rybus, who started in the tournament opener against Greece on Friday which ended 1-1 after the Poles threw away an early lead.
As a result Bordeaux's Ludovic Obraniak, deployed as a central midfielder against Greece, will switch to the left for the Russia match.
Dudka's call up allows Smuda to play Lech Poznan's Rafal Murawski in Obraniak's former position.
The only other change in the squad was forced by the one-match suspension of Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, who was sent off on Friday for bringing down a Greek striker in the box.
In place of Szczesny comes Przemyslaw Tyton, whose penalty-saving heroics after he came on as a substitute helped avoid a Polish defeat to Greece.
Ironically, Tyton plays for PSV Eindhoven, where Dutchman Advocaat is due to take helm when he leaves the Russia job after Euro 2012.
Advocaat stuck to the squad that thrashed the Czech Republic 4-1 in their own opening match on Friday.
Russia will clinch a spot in the quarter finals if they win the Warsaw fixture, while Poland know they cannot afford to lose if they want to stay in the tournament.
The Poles' hopes have been raised after the Czech Republic beat Greece 2-1 in Tuesday's other match, meaning the battle to come second in Group A is far from over.
Teams:
Poland (4-5-1):
Premyslaw Tyton; Sebastian Boenisch, Damien Perquis, Marcin Wasilewski, Lukasz Piszczek; Eugen Polanski, Dariusz Dudka, Ludovic Obraniak, Rafal Murawski, Kuba Blaszczykowski (capt); Robert Lewandowski
Coach: Franciszek Smuda
Russia (4-3-3):
Vyacheslav Malafeev; Aleksandr Anyukov, Aleksei Berezutski, Sergei Ignashevich, Yuri Zhirkov; Roman Shirokov, Igor Denislov, Konstantin Zyryanov; Alan Dzagoev, Aleksandr Kerzhakov, Andrey Arshavin (capt)
Coach: Dick Advocaat
Referee: Wolfgang Stark (GER)