Colombia Survives Group H Death Match v1.0

It's shakedown time in the World Cup's group stages.

Round 2 of their schedules usually means someone's gotta go.

The head-shaker in Group H, though, was the banished side turned out to be one of two who likely booked long-term stays in Russia.

At least Poland doesn't have all that far to travel home, and maybe they deserve to be the first side eliminated. After being blanked, 0-3, by Colombia, dudes were well and truly exposed.

 

The Biało-czerwoni -- White & Reds -- was 8th-ranked by FIFA's criteria entering Cup play. Part of the reason why is they found a way to game that system.

In essence, the Poles discovered that the fewer friendlies a team would schedule, the less chance it'd have to drop in the rankings. So they scaled 'way back from the end of the 2016 EuroCup to early 2017, at which time they rose to No 6.

Kinda like exaggerating your golf handicap. Sooner or later, someone's gonna set up a tee time with you.

 

Among other things, then, Colombia is a more accomplished side than Poland.

It showed. Especially with an inspired James Rodríguez on fire.

All Los Cafeteros offensive plays passed through Rodríguez, Juan Quintero, and/or Juan Cuadrado. On the other hand, Poland could only threaten Ospina with Robert Lewandowski. Unfortunately for their cause, dude was having a tough game, with few chances and a lack of inspiration of the Polish midfield.

When the clockstruck 40 minutes, Colombia struck, too. Yerri Mina skied over every Polish defender to meet a cross from Rodríguez:

 

After the intermission, the Polish didn't show any real adjustments at all, which meant conceding more counterattacks. Two of them made hay for the Colombians.

One came in the 70th minute, as Quintero assisted Radamel Falcao, who beat Wojciech Szczęsny with a classy finish for his first goal World Cup competition:

Five minutes later, James found Cuadrado, who pierced the Polish defense and made his mark:

The Polish tried to fight back with more chances from Lewandowski and Grzegorz Krychowiak but Ospina made great saves, guaranteeing the clean sheet.

With this result, the Poland's outta the race for a bracket position.

Colombia has options, but looking up at both Japan and Senegal means stuff needs to happen. Lotsa stuff, and in this group, anything's possible.

All that's left for the Poles now is to re-think their next World Cup qualifying campaign. Adding the experience of friendlies wouldn't go amiss.