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The job of a goalkeeper can be a cruel, thankless job that’s full of a lot of hard contact. Poland goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny was reminded that in a brutal, unfair way during his team’s 3-1 loss to Austria in the UEFA Euro 2024 Group Stage on Friday.
With Poland already down 2-1 and their tournament hopes on life support, Wojciech Szczesny was faced with a 1v1 with Marcel Sabitzer. That’s when one of the most unfortunate soccer plays you’ll see in a while happened.
Sabitzer, the Borussia Dortmund captain, tried to dribble around Wojciech Szczesny for an easy tap-in goal to go up 3-1. Wojciech Szczesny had to go to ground to try to win the ball, but he missed, and was then kicked in the face by Sabitzer! To make things worse, the referee granted a penalty. Take a look.
Ouch 😬
Szczęsny was kicked in the face on the play that led to the penalty pic.twitter.com/Q3LLVpzkKg
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 21, 2024
Szczesny was only given a yellow card for the incident, but Austria scored the penalty to go up 3-1.
It didn’t seem to affect his play very much, though, as he came up with a huge save shortly after to keep it 3-1.
Nearly a fourth for Austria!
Szczęsny makes an incredible save 😱 pic.twitter.com/UgcEJfVhyO
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 21, 2024
The sequence begs the question if that should be a foul at all, though. Yes, he does try to make a tackle. But, it’s not as if it’s an oustretched limb that Marcel Sabitzer trips over. I won’t claim to be an expert on what is and is not a foul, but I’m not sure this was a straightforward as the referees made it seem.
Sadly, Poland is likely to have extinguished their UEFA Euro 24 hopes with that 3-1 loss. They need France to lose to Netherlands Friday afternoon to have a chance to advance and would need to beat France, likely by multiple goals, to do that.