Colombia’s perfect balance of attack and defence helped them bypass a hopeless Polish side
After losing the first games of their World Cup 1–2, and Japan nicking a 2 all draw against Senegal, both Poland and Colombia had everything to play for on Sunday evening as a draw would decrease their chances of qualifying and a loss would mean getting knocked out of the competition.
Adam Nawalka opted to change 4 players of the 11 that started against Senegal, and continued with the 3–5–2 which they ended the game with. Meanwhile a fit James Rodriguez came back into Colombia’s side, along with Abel Aguilar who replaced the suspended Carlos Sanchez. Jose Pekerman’s dilemma was how to fit both James Rodriguez and Juan Fernando Quintero — two silky number 10s, who can decide a game at any point in time with their natural born talent — without affecting the team’s compactness defensively. This time the Argentine coach fielded James on the left side and Quintero behind Falcao, with James moving into midfield as a second number 10 to provide penetrating passes, and press Krychowiak and Goralski with the help of Quintero. Meanwhile Poland fielded a narrow front three which required the wing backs Bereszynski and Rybus to cover a huge amount of space with little to no support, and facing them were speedsters Johan Mojica and Juan Cuadrado respectively. As a result of the lack of support on the right hand side, Bereszynski was left in a 1 v 1 against Johan Mojica who excels in this role for his league club Girona, this meant that James no longer had to track back to support Mojica, and had the time to press the polish midfield. On the right hand side, Cuadrado would usually drop when Rybus advanced to form a 5 man defence for Colombia, leaving the Polish front 3 in a 3 v 3 against a physically strong Colombian defence.
Piotr Zielnski — normally a central midfielder occupying the left side of midfield for his league side Napoli — had to drop to assist in the build up due to the lack of ball progression, but was man marked by Aguilar and Sanchez depending on which area of the field he was occupying. The combinations of lack of options for the Polish side and the effectiveness of the Colombian defence resulted in losing the ball over and over again with no attacking threat.
On the offensive front for Colombia, their positioning meant that they had their two most creative players in their favored position to combine with Falcao whose link up play continues to be brilliant through the tournament, along with him being another option for ball progression as an aerial outlet. Also, Cuadrado on the right side, where his frequent threat resulted in dangerous opportunities, one of those resulted in a corner which was head home by Yerry Mina to give Los Cafeteros the lead.
In the second half, Poland tried to address Colombia’s main point of weakness by advancing Piszczek to support Bereszynski, but James was prepared as he stuck to his role as a left sided midfielder and tracked back to support Mojica, with Falcao dropping to assist Quintero in occupying Poland’s midfield duo. Poland’s search for the equalizer caught them in advanced positions leaving huge amount of space behind them against the quality passes of Quintero and James, it was no wonder that the Colombians would strike again, this time through Falcao and Cuadrado with Quintero and James the providers respectively. 3–0 the final score
Maximizing your winning conditions, and minimizing your losing ones is the key to win at any game, and here Colombia provided the best example by keeping Quintero and James in favorable advanced positions to provide further goal threat, and on the other hand kept defensive compactness by pressing Krychowiak and Goralski and keeping 5 v 5 at the back with Cuadrado dropping to form a 5 man defence. A similar performance is required against a much better Senegal side, as a draw would require an unlikely Poland win for the Colombians to progress.
