That's the second goal. Regardless of fault, I have not heard or read anyone who claims to remember having seen something like it before. The first score by Senegal was an own goal. The combination of both made this a hideously weird game to lose.After having watched the first Senegal goal a few times, I think the criticism of the officials is off. I get that it looked strange, but the referee waived on the player when Poland was playing the ball forward in the Senegal half. Is that really a problem? Of course, two touches later, it is heading back toward Poland's goal, but to criticize the ref is to ignore a ridiculously terrible back pass and the lackadaisical way the Polish defender approached the ball - even after having glanced over to see the Senegalese player closing down.
The entire UEFA qualification is a joke. 6-7 teams in a group, but only two are capable of decent soccer and if there’s a lucky bounce or two in matches, an even lesser team goes through.FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.
Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.
They have changed it. The system Poland gamed was excessively stupid, even for FIFA. For top teams, playing a friendly was guaranteed to lower your ranking, so what Poland did was not play any friendlies between WC qualifiers and when the WC pots were settled. Poland came out of qualifiers with a legitimate high ranking, but not good enough for Pot 1. By just not playing friendlies they rose while England and Spain slipped out. And the results didn't matter. Under that system, you could play all your friendlies against top 10 teams and win all of them, and your ranking still would go down.FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.
Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.
They have changed it. The system Poland gamed was excessively stupid, even for FIFA. For top teams, playing a friendly was guaranteed to lower your ranking, so what Poland did was not play any friendlies between WC qualifiers and when the WC pots were settled. Poland came out of qualifiers with a legitimate high ranking, but not good enough for Pot 1. By just not playing friendlies they rose while England and Spain slipped out. And the results didn't matter. Under that system, you could play all your friendlies against top 10 teams and win all of them, and your ranking still would go down.
Still this performance is an embarrassment even for the Pot 2 team Poland probably would have been. They should be able to score more than 1 free kick goal, assisted by a poorly handled game restart, in 2 games. Levandowski has never impressed me in international play. He doesn't get the open space and great service he is used to at Munich and can't really create for himself without other options teams have to deal with when playing his club.
Anyway, FIFA has switched to a modified ELO system.
http://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wor...erhaul-to-stop-manipulation-for-draw-seedings
FIFA need to change the way they rank teams.
Poland gamed the system to get a higher FIFA ranking and they have been dumped out of the competition already.