Right then, I’ll be off. Here’s the match report again. Bye!
Updated
“I think this match is instructive,” says Colum Fordham. “It shows Southgate is not up to scratch at crucial moments in matches. As happened in the final against Italy when Sancho and Grealish should have come on in the second half and today when Henderson should have come on at the very least to steady the ship. Southgate never reacts at the right moment.”
I don’t really disagree. Southgate is in significant credit in the national-team management bank, but his teams often do not lead well, and don’t seem to learn from their mistakes.
David Hytner has recovered from Poland’s highly inconvenient (for match reporters) late goal and sent in his match report:
With 72 minutes on the clock, the thought occurred that Harry Kane had not had much service. It was partly because the England captain was trying to provide it for others, dropping back from his centre-forward’s position to pick his passes.
It was time for Kane to take matters into his own hands. The ball was worked to him at the top of the midfield and, with little on and Poland players backing off him rather too respectfully, Kane unloaded with murderous intent.
The 30 yarder would have rearranged Jan Bednarek’s senses had it been slightly lower. Instead it flew over the centre-half before dipping and fading viciously away from Wojciech Szczesny’s left hand and into the bottom corner.
At that point, England looked well set for the victory that would have virtually assured them of direct qualification to the finals of the Qatar World Cup next year. They had come to control the second half of this match and yet there would be a twist.
Much more here:
Harry Kane says some things:
Obviously a tough one to take. I thought we handled the game really well, got ourselves ahead and we were seeing the game out well. Away from home sometimes the pressure builds, they put in a good cross and scored a good header. That’s football. We’ll learn from it, we’ll watch it back and prepare for the next game. There’s been two tough away games in this camp, we’re still five points clear, so we’re in a great position.
Elsewhere, Wales were held at home by Estonia and Ben Fisher was there to watch it:
What, on paper, should have been Wales’s easiest game of their World Cup qualifying campaign turned into a taxing assignment as they were held 0-0 at home to Estonia. Gareth Bale and Ethan Ampadu struck the woodwork late on but Wales plateaued to allow the visitors to pick up their first point. Robert Page prowled the technical area as Wales huffed and puffed but failed to find a route through, damaging hopes of automatic qualification.
The most moving aspect of a balmy evening was no contest. In the 52nd minute, supporters stood for a minute’s applause on what would have been the late Wales captain and manager Gary Speed’s 52nd birthday.
How the Wales support enjoyed returning in their numbers for the first time since witnessing Aaron Ramsey, absent here through injury, seal qualification for Euro 2020. A crowd of 6,500 wished Wales well after their final warmup game against Albania in June but this was much closer to the real thing – more than treble that attendance – and when the pre-match anthems finished with a few minutes to spare before kick-off, it allowed the fans to run through their favourite songs, a chance to serenade Bale and Danny Ward, as well as an opportunity to rejoice in England’s failure to bring football home.
Much more here:
A good game, that: played at a high tempo, with two quality goals and a bit of spice, played in a good atmosphere. I do think that if as a manager you make no substitutions while your opponents make five, and then your team concedes in stoppage time, you will and should face questions about whether your side might have finished the game stronger if you had done some more managing.
Final score: Poland 1-1 England
90+4 mins: Having conceded in stoppage time England will be smarting, and Poland haven’t done much this half, but over the 90 minutes they didn’t concede a single significant chance and didn’t deserve to lose. The final whistle goes, and it’s a point apiece!
90+3 mins: The scorer is booked for taking his shirt off during the celebrations, which were extraordinarily enthusiastic.
Updated
GOAL! Poland 1-1 England (Szymanski, 90+2 mins)
In the end Lewandowski’s killer moment is as provider, chipping in a peach of a cross cross and Szymanaki beats Shaw and heads in!
Updated
90+1 mins: There will be four minutes of stoppage time.
90 mins: Poland have hogged the ball for the last few minutes, but haven’t really done anything with it. Finally a cross deflects off Mount back to Pickford.
89 mins: Lewandowski demands the ball, brings down a long, high pass impeccably, shifts the ball onto his right foot and curls high and wide.
86 mins: If results stay as they are, neither San Marino nor Andorra would be able to catch England. Not that they would have caught England anyway, but still. One less thing to worry about, if you’re the type of person who worries about everything.
83 mins: Andorra have pulled a goal back in Budapest, and are now only 2-1 down to Hungary. Albania lead the Sammarinese 5-0.
81 mins: Nearly a classic calamity goal! Pickford delays his kick, allows Swiderski to close him down and then boots his clearance into the onrushing Pole. The ball deflects back towards goal, but Pickford races back to stop it crossing the line!
80 mins: Poland make all the changes, bringing on Helik for Glik, Rybus for Puchacz and Frankowski for Jozwiak.
79 mins: Linetty is pickpocketed by Phillips and then takes away Kane’s legs as he tries to win the ball back. Another booking.
78 mins: Puchacz’s next contribution is less pretty, and he’s booked for tripping Sterling.
77 mins: A pretty pass from Puchacz but it’s too far in front of Swiderski, and Pickford collects.
76 mins: “Isn’t that very Harry Kane?” suggests Callum Farrelly, while Glik gets some treatment off-pitch. “Useless all night and then that!” Well not really. It’s a bit Kane-for-England, but I don’t think he can generally be accused of being peripheral.
🚨 Stop scrolling and watch this! 🚨
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) September 8, 2021
A @HKane beauty gives @England the lead in Poland! 💥🤩#ITVFootball | #ThreeLions pic.twitter.com/ydB9Aro74h
73 mins: A remarkable shot from Kane, which heads right down the middle of goal towards Szczesny before making a last-minute decision to turn right. It’s from way out, it doesn’t go in the corner, and Szczesny has no chance.
Updated
GOAL! Poland 0-1 England (Kane, 72 mins)
Harold Kane just spanks one into the bottom corner from 25 yards!
Updated
71 mins: Lewandowski’s low 20-yarder skims into Pickford’s arms.
70 mins: The wind has been sucked out of England’s sails a bit these last few minutes, and it might soon be time for Southgate to flex his substitutional muscles.
68 mins: Another change for the hosts, who take off Krychowiak and bring on Damian Szymanski.
66 mins: Poland’s first real attack of the half sees Puchacz run into the box before lashing a left-foot shot wide from an acute angle.
64 mins: Group I update: It’s still Hungary 2-0 Andorra while the floodgates have opened in Elbasan, where it’s Albania 4-0 San Marino.
63 mins: Poland bring Karol Swiderski on for Adam Buksa.
61 mins: Close! The ball is knocked into the mixer, and Maguire’s header loops against the post before the offside Sterling touches it.
60 mins: Grealish sees Krychowiak coming across to challenge him, so knocks the ball the other way and lets himself get taken out. Krychowiak is booked.
59 mins: Whatever Gareth Southgate said at half-time, he could have done with saying it before kick-off. There is a strong scent of away goal in the air right now.
56 mins: Sterling is played into space on the right, and this time Kane is in the middle, but he cuts inside and Bednarek gets across to snuffle out the danger.
54 mins: Phillips has a 25-yard shot that goes down as England’s first shot on target. Sczczesny catches.
51 mins: England have started the half excellently, and have repeatedly worked the ball into the Poland area. They still haven’t made a clear chance, mind, and Kane isn’t getting into goalscoring positions as often as he might.
Updated
48 mins: Sterling does a couple of nice turns in the area, sitting a defender down stylishly but then not picking out either a cross or a pass so just dribbling around a bit until someone takes the ball off him.
47 mins: Close! Grealish slides the ball across goal from the left, but there was nobody there to tap it in! England thought Szczesny had tipped it wide, but the referee didn’t.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! England start the second half. “Hi from Norway Simon,” writes Brendan Large. Hello! “Just wondering how the ref can book Phillips for someone else put their foot under his whilst landing and then Glik gets the same for randomly pinching the skin under Walker’s chin and then some wind up shithousery to Maguire?” Really I think the Phillips booking was a mistake, that Daniel Siebert himself would surely agree if he got the chance to see it again, and we should probably just put it behind us.
The players are back out, with no sign of any changes so far. Polish readers: is Simon Chadwick’s Polish football magazine as scary as it looks?
Every time I'm in Poland, I buy copies of this football magazine - To My Kibice. Available in most news kiosks, alongside all the other football favourites, family magazines & kids comics. It still intrigues & concerns me in equal measure.... pic.twitter.com/V9jeTAbDSh
— Professor Simon Chadwick (@Prof_Chadwick) September 8, 2021
Well this is quite tasty. Poland have worked hard, defended spaces well, closed down space superbly, and towards the end of the half indulged in a little light shithousery. They have also had a few chances, or nearly-chances, and overall England will be pleased to have got to the break without conceding. Stones, incidentally, played on until the break.
Half time: Poland 0-0 England
45+3 mins: Handbags! There’s some afters as the players leave the field following the referee’s half-timely whistle. It’s hard to see who did what but at the end of it Glik, who he should have booked moments earlier, and Maguire are both cautioned and the players finally leave the field.
Updated
45+2 mins: England concede a free kick, wide on Poland’s left and midway into the England half. There’s some intensive jostling on the defensive line while the Poles wait to take it - Glik pinches the fleshy part underneath Walker’s chin right in front of the referee and gets away with it. Then the free kick is taken, and headed away.
45+1 mins: England work a shooting opportunity for Phillips, but Glik is out superbly to block.
45+2 mins: The referee would like there to be two minutes of stoppage time, please.
45 mins: Linetty turns infield from the left side of the penalty area and looks about to move into a dangerous shooting position when Rice throws out a foot and pokes the ball away.
43 mins: England win a corner, which skims Maguire’s head on its way across the area. The visitors haven’t quite clicked so far.
39 mins: Stones has continued, but won’t for long: Conor Coady is tying his laces.
37 mins: Stones appears able to continue.
Updated
36 mins: Stones brings the ball to the half-way line and then passes out of play before going to ground and clutching a left ankle. He looks in mild discomfort rather then genuine agony.
34 mins: Sterling holds off Moder and heads off towards Poland’s area, before tumbling when he’s started to get into the vague vicinity. A foul wasn’t obvious to me, or to the referee.
32 mins: Moder tries a long-range curler, which goes absolutely nowhere near the target.
29 mins: Finally the ball falls to Lewandowski in the box! He keeps the ball well outside England’s area and passes to Linetty, who chips it into the box for the striker to run onto, and with Pickford coming out he tries to lift it over the keeper with his left foot but doesn’t get enough on it.
26 mins: In tonight’s other Group I matches, Albania are yet to make a breathrough against San Marino (who have had 22% of possession), while Hungary have raced into a 2-0 lead over Andorra (12%).
22 mins: Approaching quarter-time and this has been an exemplary qualifier, high of tempo and interest. Poland have created several almost-opportunities, none of them for the guy who might take them, and England are yet to really spark.
21 mins: Real chance for England! Sterling stands the ball up from the right and Kane heads, all but unchallenged, limply and off target.
19 mins: England counter, and the move ends with Mount aiming a curling shot towards the far post and missing it very emphatically.
18 mins: Chance for Poland! It’s a lovely cross from the left that curls and dips towards Buksa, but he throws a foot at the ball without quite reaching it.
15 mins: Grealish wins a corner on the left, which Luka Shaw takes poorly. It’s cleared equally poorly to Mount, but his shot is charged down.
14 mins: Lewandowski shuffles his feet 25 yards out, sucks in a couple of defenders and plays the ball to Moder on his left, but Walker stops him doing anything more constructive with it then hitting a low cross straight to Pickford.
12 mins: Grealish is fouled by Kamil Jozwiak. Having booked Phillips for almost nothing the referee should really now caution everyone for everything for the sake of consistency and we can end up with a 3v3 game. Jozwiak, though, is not booked.
11 mins: England meanwhile have done very little by way of attacking. Kyle Walker just motored down the right wing before sending in a low cross that went nowhere near another blue shirt, which is as good as it’s got.
Updated
8 mins: An absolutely ludicrous booking for Kalvin Phillips, who completely accidentally stands on Puchacz’s foot, which at the last second and while Phillips looks the other way is thrust underneath his already-descending boot.
7 mins: A decent start for the home side, who win a corner and send it bouncing through the area to Linetty, whose shot is scuffed and cleared.
Updated
5 mins: The first shot of the night comes off the left boot of Tymoteusz Puchacz, who meets a deep cross from the right with a thunderous volley straight into a defender.
2 mins: “Where did all this booing the other country’s national anthem come from?” wonders Malcolm Shuttleworth. “It’s disgraceful.” If you go to a game at Wembley it’s largely done with absolutely no animosity, it’s just become part of the experience. People do it with smiles on their faces.
1 min: Peeeeeep! Poland, with white shirts and socks and red shorts, get the ball rolling.
Anthems done. Football next.
The players are on their way out. The officials come out first, milking the applause before first Poland and then England follow.
Updated
Gareth Southgate is chatting:
No two games are the same and the challenge will be different. I think we’ll have to defend better as a team. They’re going to ask different sorts of questions. Lewandowski is an outstanding striker and any team with a player of that calibre will feel different when he’s in there. We’re in a good rhythm of making sure everyone in the team works for each other. You’ve got to limit the supply first and foremost, but we’ve also made our players aware of the areas he likes to attack. If we think we’re a team that don’t need to work and don’t need to do the hard yards then we’ll come unstuck, and tonight is a good test for us.
He’s asked what his team need in order to win today:
Just high standards in everything they do, with and without the ball. We’ve got to strive for perfection. We know it’s almost impossible, but that’s our challenge.
Just a few photos dripping in from PGE Narodowy, most of them from the same unusual angle. There seems to be a very short photographer in action:
Some pre-match reading for you, courtesy of Steve Pye’s 1980s Sports Blog, on a World Cup qualifier between these teams back in 1989:
It is often stated that the line between success and failure is thin. On October 11, 1989, English football fans would witness a prime sporting example of this. The national football team may have qualified for the 1990 World Cup after a 0-0 draw in Chorzow, Poland. But it could have all been oh so different. As the clock ticked towards the 90-minute mark and Rysard Tarasiewicz pulled back his right foot, that line between success and failure was wafer thin.
England manager Bobby Robson really didn’t need one final scare. After the disastrous showing at Euro 88, the pressure placed on Robson’s shoulders may even have left Titan Atlas needing a rest. “A contributing factor was that the circulation war between the Sun and the Daily Mirror was turning medieval,” Robson wrote in Farewell, But Not Goodbye. “The office of England manager was one of their battlegrounds.”
Two Daily Mirror headlines painted a very clear picture of the strain placed on Robson. After a 0-0 draw against Sweden in the opening match of the 1990 World Cup qualifying programme, “GO! IN THE NAME OF GOD GO!” appeared on the back page, and to continue the theme “GO! IN THE NAME OF ALLAH GO!” was displayed as England struggled to a 1-1 draw in Saudi Arabia. With allegations about Robson’s private life also filling column inches, the England boss started to wonder if resigning would be the easiest way out.
More here.
After the feast, the famine: just one right-back in this England line-up, in the shape of Kyle Walker. A disappointing night for right-back fans everywhere.
The teams!
Team news is in, and here are tonight’s line-ups:
Poland: Szczesny, Dawidowicz, Glik, Bednarek, Puchacz, Jozwiak, Linetty, Krychowiak, Moder, Buksa, Lewandowski. Subs: Slisz, Piatkowski, Swiderski, Zalewski, Dragowski, Frankowski, Damian Szymanski, Kaminski, Kedziora, Rybus, Skorupski, Helik.
England: Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Shaw, Phillips, Rice, Sterling, Mount, Grealish, Kane. Subs: Johnstone, James, Saka, Bamford, Lingard, Henderson, Alexander-Arnold, Coady, Trippier, Bellingham, Pope.
Referee: Daniel Siebert (Germany).
⚠️ SKŁAD NA ANGLIĘ
— Łączy nas piłka (@LaczyNasPilka) September 8, 2021
Już o 20:45 zaczniemy mecz z Anglią w eliminacjach do mistrzostw świata! 🏆
Sprawdźcie, kto zagra od pierwszej minuty. ⤵️
__________
85 minut do #POLENG 🇵🇱🏴 pic.twitter.com/7trffMToMV
Let’s go boys!! 🏴🦁🦁🦁 https://t.co/jcogSoF3oG
— Marcus Rashford MBE (@MarcusRashford) September 8, 2021
Updated
Preamble
Hello world!
So England’s World Cup qualifying campaign is going rather spiffingly, and it looks very much like they’re going to go and qualify again, which much as I would deeply love England to win something at some point is in some ways a shame. The next World Cup is of course being held in Qatar, because somebody completely legitimately and with nothing on his side but good reasoning convinced the decision-makers that it would be a good idea to play it somewhere that really has no business hosting grass, let alone entire tournaments played upon it.
Listen, the modern world is full of compromises. We can all climb aboard the Big Dipper of Whataboutery – How can you criticise football’s obsession with petrodollars if you think Vincent Kompany seemed like a good bloke? How dare you take a stand against slavery while you still eat Peruvian asparagus? That kind of thing – but the way the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were awarded was a scandal that shames football and has not been meaningfully confronted, and as a football fan this World Cup, and by extension the qualifiers for it, makes me feel dirty and ashamed. So here I am at my keyboard, ready to watch a game of football, hopefully to enjoy it, and either way to frantically type about it for you fine folk. I’m not going to incessantly bang on about matters surrounding the game, but I do think it is appropriate to start 2022 World Cup liveblogs with a reminder that the game that follows is being played under a filthy, toxic cloud.
If you don’t believe that slavery is a good idea, you can find further information and donate to some excellent causes at Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery International, among many others. The United Nations has a non-exhaustive list of agencies, programmes, charities, NGOs and foundations working on contemporary forms of slavery here.
Now, here are Gareth Southgate’s pre-match thoughts:
