Poles pushing for finals place

By Maciej Iwanski

Poland moved back into contention for a place in next year's UEFA European Under-21 Championship as a comfortable win against Azerbaijan at the Polonia stadium in Warsaw closed the gap on the top two in Group 6.

Beautiful breakthrough
Despite the comfortable final margin of victory, Wladyslaw Zmuda's team did not break through a solid Azeri defence until seven minutes before half-time, Marcin Burkhardt giving goalkeeper Ruslan Majidow no chance with a beautiful 30-metre shot.

Second-half surge
Having finally opened the scoring, the Poles completely seized the initiative after half-time, with Karol Gregorek fouled inside the Azerbaijan penalty area five minutes into the second period and Piotr Brozek making no mistake from the spot. Pawel Brozek's fifth goal of the qualifying campaign 20 minutes later put the seal on a fine win.

Poland third
Poland moved on to eight points from five games, but remained third in the standings and will hope for three more points in the reverse fixture between these two sides on 3 June. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, stayed bottom of the table on one point, and travel to England on Tuesday night.