Our Polish Observer, Marcin Smietana, explains which strategy to adopt against Austria.

Perhaps it is true the game against Germany felt like an opening one. A poor start does not necessarily mean a total failure. This fact is also true for the Ger

man team. The ball, although unpredictable even for Celtic’s Boruc in the end, created a fairly predictable scenario.

Act I: by Lukas Podolski, a German player of Polish origin bo

Act II: There was overwhelming hostility towards the momentarily “inhibited” striker… so much so that some would even like to take away his Polish citizenship. Never mind that he does not even have a Polish passport. Symbolic gesture then.

Chorus: What if he had not scored? What if Poland had won? Just two goals and a big deal?

Act III, though, may make chorus questions unnecessary. There is one scenario with Lukas scoring the winning goals against Croatia and Poland’s win over Austria which could make the whole story even more… kitsch.

So, if you do want to get the upper hand in the game stay away from the drama. Or look at the Polish statistics in the last match with defenders Bąk and Żewłakow having the best ones in terms of ball possession and successful passes.

The last remark about statistics made by former famous Polish international striker Zbigniew Boniek in an interview for Polish daily “Gazeta Wyborcza”, seems to be on target and is definitely a wake-up call for the players. “They should give thanks to Leo Beenhakker for their selection to the national team and do their best tomorrow” – Boniek also said yesterday in TV Polsat studio, a private channel which bought the transmission for all Euro 2008 matches.

Otherwise severe criticism is bound to come over the list of players left home by Leo Beenhakker (namely: Polish league top scorer Paweł Brożek, Ireneusz Jelen playing in Ligue 1, Radosław Matusiak who scored goals against Belgium and Serbia in the qualification round though completely without form, Artur Wichniarek from Arminia Bielefeld and few more), regardless if anyone could measure the outcomes they could have changed for the better.

And, more importantly, Austria was not weak against Croatia. It is going to be a difficult game for the white-and-reds then.

Our Austrian Observer, Michael Pech, doubts on his team's chances to win against Poland.

Austria have good chances to win against Poland this evening. Despite the last game result, they didn't play that badly against Croatia.

For this game against the Poles, Austria will have to play offensively if they want to win. I think they will play with two forwards who will have to score.

Here, Austrians don't really believe they can do it, but still want to win badly! Unfortunaty, we all know the world Fifa rank of our team... And we did not win against Poland for half a century now!

But tonight all the stadium will support them as much as they can.