All Time World Cup! 2nd Round...
Di Stefano 14, Labruna 65, Batistuta 74, Lubanski 81
Padadena
After qualifying fairly comfortably from their first round group, Poland were feeling pretty confident going into this match. Defence was a slight worry -Coach Gorski put Wladislaw Zmuda on Gabriel Batistuta, and hoped his fellow defenders between them could cope with Maradona and Di Stefano.
This seemed unlikely, but at the other end he felt Poland’s attacking options were enough to cause Argentina problems.
Poland generally looked on top for most of the first half, but it was Argentina who had the lead, after a clever through ball from Ardiles found Di Stefano in space. Apart from that moment, Argentina had seemed happy to play cautious balls around in defence and midfield, while their famous attack seemed subdued. To shake things up a bit, at half time coach Menotti replaced the disappointing Kempes with Angel Labruna, star of River Plate’s legendary ‘La Maquina’ (The Machine’) forward line of the 1940s.
That team is seen as a predecessor to Holland’s Total Football 30 years later. Labruna immediately linked well with Di Stefano to create a chance for Batistuta which Tomaszewski did well to parry.
Argentina’s movement up front was now beginning to overwhelm the Polish defence, and fittingly it was Labruna who added the second goal on 65 minutes, after crisp interplay between Di Stefano, Maradona, Batistua and Maradona again.
The little man’s back heel left Labruna free to place his shot past the keeper. The two men were both nominally inside-lefts, but both had enough tactical ability to compliment each other rather than get in each others’ way.
The match now looked a lost cause, but in a final throw of the dice, Poland brought on striker Ernst Willimowski. In 1938 he became the first player to score four times in a World Cup match, against Brazil no less, and earned the penalty for Poland’s fifth goal.
Incredibly, it was not enough, as a Leônidas-inspired Brazil won 6-5. It seemed Willimowski’s luck against South American opponents was not about to change, as he was denied twice in quick succession by great saves from Fillol.
With about quarter of an hour to play, those saves seemed even more vital, as Argentina went up to the other end to kill the game off.
Maradona went down under a challenge from Pawel Janas, and Batistuta made no mistake from the penalty spot to maintain his goal-a-game record.
Poland were clearly on their way out, but exited the tournament with a final flourish in the last ten minutes.
Boniek, faced with a wall of defenders, dragged the ball back and flicked it in the air before volleying a high pass over the defence which Wlozimierz Lubanski ran on to volley past Fillol. Poland pressed forward again but could not conjure up further goals before the final whistle.
They had shown great attacking verve, but had lacked a truly top-quality defensive midfielder to shield the back four, which had looked very solid and organised as a unit but which, Zmuda apart, did not have the individual quality to cope with the genius of Di Stefano and Maradona.
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