Poland played like a local league side against Ecuador: Press

Munich, June 10 :

Germany welcomed the opening 4-2 win over Costa Rica with open arms on Saturday but concerns were expressed about the defensive errors that continue to haunt the team.

“Dream goals but our defence is a nightmare,” headlined Bild, the country’s best-selling newspaper. “The defence is a real concern. We Germans would like less tension. The defence is torturing us. A last 16 exit could be on the cards,” it added. Germany treated their fans to a goal fest in Munich on Friday with Miroslav Klose scoring twice while defender Philipp Lahm and Torsten Frings were also on target. But Costa Rica replied twice with Paulo Wanchope netting both goals as the German backline looked far from accomplished.

“Successful start glosses over mistakes,” concluded Die Welt. “Once again the defence showed huge weaknesses against the harmless central Americans.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung agreed, saying: “Lots of goals and lots of mistakes in opener.”

Local newspaper the Munchner Merkur said half of the equation was right for World Cup success. “Costa Rica show the German team their attack is good enough but their defence isn’t,” it opined.

Germany manager Jurgen Klinsmann insisted three points on the board was the main thing. “Of course we would rather have had a clean sheet but the most important thing was a winning start,” Klinsmann said. “Opponents will always get chances but there are a lot of positives.”

Poland “played like a local league side” and has “already lost the World Cup” after the 2-0 loss to Ecuador in its opening match of the competition, the Polish press lamented on Saturday, nursing a national morning-after hangover.

“We’ve already lost the World Cup,” cried the Dziennik daily on its front page. “We’ve been battered and destroyed,” said Dziennik, which called the loss to Ecuador “disturbing”.

“Fear in their eyes, no ideas or technique, no speed in their legs,” deplored the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. Poland played “like a local league side”, not like a national team in the most prestigious football competition in the world, wrote Gazeta.

Rzeczpospolita said Poland’s “chances of going through to the second round are considerably lessened” while the Warsaw-based daily Zycie Warszawy recalled “the return of the South Korean horror”.

News TV station TVN24 devoted almost its entire morning programme to the match and analysis of it, headlining morning-after reports from Gelsenkirchen in Germany with “Weak Poland”, and pondering coach Pawel “Janas’ baffling tactics”. It interspersed shots of Polish fans in shock and mourning with jubilant Ecuadorian supporters.

Poland faces a tough test on Wednesday when it plays Germany, and the media urged the side to “pull out all the stops”.