England lose to Poland in final group game of Euros, but will take on Dutch in last four

Poland 3-2 England
Wednesday 13 June 2012
2012 INAS European Championship
Sweden

The England Learning Disability team set up a semi-final tie with Holland despite losing to Poland in their final group game of the INAS European Championship.

England started the game slowly and were on the back foot from the off. Poland opened the scoring after intercepting a pass in midfield and breaking quickly to score past captain Kevin Ginever.

The Three Lions were stunned into life by the setback and they proceeded to press forward with a greater vigour. The equaliser came after 13 minutes as Lerone Plummer stabbed home from close range.

With England not used to playing against such a physical and aggressive team, they were unable to impose their own game on proceedings. They were given the opportunity to take the lead from the penalty spot after Royce Greenidge was brought down, but he dragged the penalty wide.

The game was effectively decided within the last two minutes of the first half as Poland scored twice in the space of 60 seconds to put them into a 3-1 lead at the break following some loose play by England in their own half.

The second half saw a similar pattern develop, although neither team were able to produce any credible efforts on goal. Poland were reduced to ten men with 15 minutes left but England still struggled to produce a reply. England did pull a goal back in stoppage time after they were awarded another penalty, which was slammed home by Sleiman Mbarouk.

Head Coach Chris Dowhan told TheFA.com: “Today was a big learning curve for the team and there are plenty of lessons for them to take away for the semi-final.

"We now have to regroup and focus ourselves on Friday’s game and put right what went wrong today.”

England
K. Ginever, C. Allen,  M. Edwards, C. McGinty (G. Simmons), L. Plummer, G. Chukwuma (A. Bilal), S. Reid, R. Greenidge, R. Gallagher, M. Harrison, B. Khorrami (S. Mbarouk)