Lech in the final of the Polish Cup

Lech Poznan drew with Zaglebie Sosnowiec 1:1 in the second leg of the Polish Cup semifinal and thus advanced to the last stage of the competition. Maciej Gajos got his twelfth goal for Lech this season.

The match began with a free kick awarded to Zaglebie. Dudek was the one responsible for executing the free kick and if it wasnt for Buric's successful intervention, the player would have added a goal to his account. This was one of the few goal-scoring opportunities the hosts created before the break. Meanwhile, Lech played were cautiously, concentrating on positional attacks and securing the midfield to prevent Zaglebie from counterattacking. The players from Poznan also ensured the had chances to score, for instance when Gajos converted a free kick into a pass that nearly had Bille place the ball in the net, but the defenders blocked the shot at the last moment.

Finally Lech's offensive actions intensified and in the 27th minute Bille hit the post after receiving a great cross from Lovrencsics. Shortly afterwards it was the goalkeeper that stopped Jevtic from scoring by redirecting the ball above the crossbar. Bille kept on getting good passes, but whenever his teammates served him the ball well, the Dane's shot were mostly not on target.

After the halftime the team from Poznan concentrated on remaining in possession of the ball for as long as possible, while Zaglebie became braver in its offensive manouvers. For instance, Pribula tried surprising Lech, but his shot was blocked. The defense from Poznan was solid and made little errors, thus Zaglebie had a difficult task to complete. However, whenever the hosts managed to pass Lech's guarding wall, the stadium rose to support the players.

A lot had changed the moment Linetty appeared on the pitch. The 21 year-old has been absent for the past 5 matches. His return brought fresh energy and dynamism to the team. In addition, the young midfielder sent a couple of good long balls to his teammates, but they were inaccurate and thus none of those passes turned into an assist until the 70th minute when Lech finally succeeded and scored a goal. Tetteh's pass reached Linetty, the latter gave the ball to Gajos who left a defender behind and sent an accurate shot by the further post.

Lech had a couple more chances to score, like the one in which Jozwiak decided for an individual run and built a good goal-scoring opportunity for Lovrencsics. The Hungarian was blocked and thus when the score changed again, it wasn't in the favor of Lech. In the 82nd minute Paluchowski converted a one-against-one situation into a goal. However, the hosts needed 2 more goals in order to advance to the final and since Lech defended solidly, when the referee ended the match, it was Lech that had a better aggregate and proceeded to the next phase of the competition.

ZAGŁĘBIE SOSNOWIEC - LECH POZNAŃ 1:1 (0:0)

Goals: Paluchowski (82) - Gajos (70)

Yellow cards: Udovićić - Tetteh

Zagłębie: Wojciech Fabisiak - Marcin Sierczyński, Dimitar Vezalov, Krzysztof Markowski, Żarko Udovićić - Łukasz Matusiak, Sebastian Dudek - Dawid Ryndak (41. Robert Bartczak), Michał Fidziukiewicz, Martin Pribula (79. Adrian Paluchowski) - Jakub Arak (79. Jakub Wilk)

Lech Poznań: Jasmin Burić - Tomasz Kędziora, Marcin Kamiński, Paulus Arajuuri, Tamas Kadar (90. Robert Gumny) - Łukasz Trałka, Abdul Aziz Tetteh - Gergo Lovrencsics, Maciej Gajos, Darko Jevtić (62. Karol Linetty) - Nicki Bille (74. Kamil Jóźwiak)