After two consecutive losses that left them at the bottom of their four-team World Cup group, the Polish team is heading home after their third and final game later this week. Even if they win against Japan, they won’t have enough points to move on to the next round of sixteen teams.
But we didn’t know that when a group of Poles and sympathizers gathered to watch Poland play Columbia this afternoon.
There was optimism from the beginning, but I told K on the way there, “You know Columbia is going to win, right?”
Why? Poland had played so pathetically against Senegal that I felt they were broken psychologically. Senegal was supposed to be the push-over team in their group. They were supposed to be the ones everyone trampled on like they’re a bunch of amateurs. And then on Tuesday, the Poles scored an own-goal and let the Senegalese take an embarrassingly easy second goal due entirely to a ridiculous error from the Polish goalie to end 2-1.
I had that feeling, and truth be told, K did too. Everyone in the room except for the three Columbians in the room probably had that feeling as well. Of course, they might well have felt that way, too.
All the Poles sang “Mazurek Dąbrowskiego,” the Polish national anthem.
Poland has not yet perished,
So long as we still live.
What the foreign force has taken from us,
We shall with sabre retrieve.
March, march, Dąbrowski,
From the Italian land to Poland.
Under your command
We shall rejoin the nation.
We’ll cross the Vistula, we’ll cross the Warta,
We shall be Polish.
Bonaparte has given us the example
Of how we should prevail.
The Columbians sang their national anthem:
Oh, unwithering glory!
Oh, immortal jubilance!
In furrows of pain,
goodness now germinates.The dreadful night has ceased.
Sublime Liberty
beams forth the dawn
of her invincible light.
All of humanity
that groans within its chains,
understands the words
of He who died on the cross.
In both cases, I think they only got through about two verses: the anthem at the stadium was instrumental and short.
The good mood among the Poles didn’t last long. Just before the end of the first half, Yerry Mina scored for Columbia. Of course, there was still hope. Among Poles, there’s always hope. But it was waning: a tie would not do. Only a victory could save the Polish national team. Yet halfway through the second half, at the 70-minute mark, Radamel Falcao scored a second goal for Columba. And as if to rub a little dirt in the Poles’ faces, Juan Cuadrado scored again five minutes later.
And it was all over.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” a friend said. “They’ll be another World Cup, another chance.” True enough.
