Recap
Halloween Horror Show
With Halloween approaching, Sunday’s match saw the Dragoons fall to pieces in a display worthy of a cheap horror flick. Orzeł Bębło, took full advantage and stormed to a 5-1 victory in what will surely go down as the Expats’ worst performance of the season.
After returning to winning ways last weekend against Orzeł Iwanowice, the Dragoons went into the game with their tails up. However, an unending list of injuries and players unavailable saw the Dragoons forced to make changes.
Into the lineup, Hugo Cruz made one change at the back as Josh Dawson started for the first time this season. The Englishman took the place of Simon Calabrese who was unavailable for selection. Kuba Drobny partnered Dawson, with Roman Bilovol and Piotr Hajnrych starting at right and left back.
The midfield remained unchanged with Enrico Forabosco, Emre Çolakoğlu and Cornielle Malonga all keeping their places.
Attacking wise, Szymon Urzedowski moved from right wing to left to accommodate Martin Voženílek’s return to the XI. With Rohit Chandran suffering an ankle injury and Janek Kołodziejski unable to start, Yuri Samyonov led the line for the Expats.
💙🖤STARTING XI💙🖤
Here is your 11 starters for today’s clash against Orzeł Bębło
🧤 𝐆𝐤: 🇵🇱
🛡️ 𝐃𝐟: 🇦🇷 🇵🇱 🏴 🇵🇱
⚙️ 𝐌𝐟: 🇨🇩 🇫🇮/🇮🇹 🇹🇷
🔥 𝐅𝐰: 🇨🇿 🇮🇱 🇮🇳#COYD💙🖤 pic.twitter.com/0R91BQbBo4— Krakow Dragoons FC (@DragoonsFc) October 27, 2024
Kick Off
The Dragoons started the game strongly and could have been ahead within the first minute of the game. Enrico Forabosco found Martin Voženílek down the right wing and the Czech whipped in a cross that almost found Emre Çolakoğlu. Unfortunately, the Turkish man mountain was unable to get a telling touch right in front of the goal.
Down the other end, Bębło had two headed chances in consecutive minutes that called Marcin Obyrtacz into action for the first time. Thankfully, the Expats keeper kept the game level saving one of the attempts, whilst the other flew over the bar.
The Dragoons continued their bright start and looked to utilise Voženílek’s pace down the right. The winger put a couple of excellent passes into the box, but the Expats failed to work a shooting opportunity.
Bębło Into The Lead
However, after that brief promise, it soon turned into a nightmare for the Dragoons, as Orzeł struck twice in quick succession.
In the 13th minute, a ball down the right flank exposed the Expats’ defence. An incoming ball made its way across the Dragoons’ box, beyond the defence to find Wojtek Swajcowski unmarked. The Bębło man hit a rather weak first-time effort at goal, that Obyrtacz looked to have covered. The usually reliable stopper got a hand to the ball but couldn’t prevent the visitors from taking the lead.
A Quickfire Second
Straight from kick-off the Expats went on the offensive with Forabosco dispossessed on the edge of the Orzeł box. The visitors went on the counter and a neat through-ball left the Dragoons defence trailing. Paweł Michalski stormed through one-on-one and slotted past the helpless Obyrtacz to immediately make it 0-2. With two goals in a minute, any hope of a spirited performance quickly vanished like a ghost in the mist.
The Dragoons had their chances with Martin Voženílek at his creative best. The best chance fell to Yuri Samyonov, usually dependable, who managed to completely miss the ball from point-blank range—leaving the supporters cackling and the scoreline unchanged.
In the 36th minute, a long ball by Orzeł carved the Dragoons defence open like a knife through a pumpkin. Two opponents burst through on goal and looked certain to score a third goal. However, a shocking misplaced pass allowed the Expats’ ponderous defence a chance to catch up and the danger passed.
Horrifying!
Four minutes later, another long ball left the defence possessed like zombies and Orzeł added a third with ease. On this occasion, a pass across the box found Emil Skrzypek with the freedom of the six-yard box to tap into an empty net for 0-3.
Soon after, the half ended with the Dragoons needing a miracle to get anything out of the game after a lifeless performance. Despite some horrifying football, the game could have been different if the Expats had taken their chances.
Second Half
In an attempt to breathe fresh life into the game, Brian Lemmen came on to replace Piotr Hajnrych. Hugo Cruz changed formation to a 343 in an attempt to change his sides fortunes.
On 50 minutes, the Expats thought they had received a treat from the referee in the form of a penalty. Martin Voženílek’s cross appeared to strike the arm of an opponent. However, after consulting with his linesman, the official overruled his decision advising it had hit the Bębło defender on the chest first.
Less than a minute later, Voženílek got into the box, but once again no Dragoons player gambled to get onto his ball across goal.
Orzeł Add A Fourth
It wasn’t long before Orzeł added a fourth in the 59th minute. The Dragoons managed to get in the way of a couple of efforts with Drobny bravely getting his head to a shot. However, he failed to get any distance on the ball and kept his ground, to play Paweł Michalski onside. The Bębło man got in the way of an incoming shot, and took advantage to calmly slot the ball into the net from close range.
Desperate to bring the dead back to life, Huge Cruz introduced fresh legs with Vałdzis Fuhaš, Jan Kołodziejski and Święcicki entering. Çolakoğlu, Samyonov and Roman Bilovol all made way as the Expats threw their last roll of the dice.
Dragoons Chance!
However, the magic just wasn’t there as the Expats passed up another glorious chance in the 65th minute. The Dragoons chucked men forward with Kołodziejski’s cross being cleared as far as Drobny on the edge of the box. The defender sent a firm header back into the box where a defensive miscommunication allowed Fuhaš to poke the ball at goal.
Kamil Herdzik in the Bębło goal managed to get down to just get a hand to keep the ball out of the net. However, he could only put it straight into the path of Kołodziejski! With all the goal to aim for, the substitute somehow hit the ball straight at the grounded Herdzik from close range and another chance went array. Anyone would have thought the goal was haunted!
A Frightful Fifth
Two minutes later, a fifth goal sealed the fate of the Dragoons in frightful fashion leaving them petrified. A cross into the box saw Drobny jump under the ball and it landed at the feet of Swajcowski. Obyrtacz did well to smother the first attempt, however, the grounded forward reacted quickest to swivel and put the ball into an empty net to further increase the score to 0-5 leaving the cursed Dragoons bewildered.
More Krakow Vampire’s than Dragoons as the side seemed scared of both their own and the opponents’ crosses!
Consolatory Goal
With the game all but lost, the Expats did manage to score an 80th minute consolation to cap off a ghoulish performance. Josh Dawson rampaged down the pitch connecting nicely with Malonga and Kołodziejski. The defender found himself in a shooting position but saw his attempt blocked and fall straight to Fuhaš inside the penalty area. The attacker took the ball down nicely and lashed a shot past Herdzik as the Dragoons showed a flicker of life.
CONSOLATION ⚽️
Vałdzis Fuhaš 🌎 bags his fourth goal of the season with a cool finish, even as the Dragoons🐉 faced a tough 1-5 loss to Orzeł Bębło.
📹A moment of quality in a challenging game—onward and upward!#COYD💙🖤 pic.twitter.com/mODGGvgH42
— Krakow Dragoons FC (@DragoonsFc) October 29, 2024
As the final whistle blew, there was no hiding from the scale of the disaster. In the worst performance of the season, the Dragoons were torn apart by a disciplined Orzeł side that left them looking more tricked than treated. Let’s hope this horror show stays a one-off—or it’ll be a long, cold winter for the Dragoons faithful.
With the game over, the Dragoons remain in 6th place, leaving themselves five points behind 5th place.
Summary
With a number of players unavailable, it was always going to be a tough ask for the Dragoons. The side did start brightly, but a failure to find the net would see the side badly punished. To their credit Orzeł soon found a weakness in the Dragoons’ backline and was ruthless in putting the team to the sword.
Orzeł was quicker, more physical and extremely well disciplined both in and out of possession. The Expats ran around chasing shadows and did not look to have the same fitness levels.
A frustrating aspect was the Dragoons inability to play simply and struggling to with their positional discipline off the ball. Too often they were slow in getting back and struggled to win any second balls.
Perhaps the Dragoons could have changed things earlier, however, it does show the need for the Expats to adopt slightly different tactics when they do not have their key players available.
🇨🇿 MAN OF THE MATCH 🇨🇿
In a tough day at the office, Martin Voženílek 🇨🇿 was a constant threat down the right wing.
In a game where the team underperformed, Martin put in a quality individual performance to earn him the Dragoons 🐉 MOTM award 🏅
Congrats, Martin!#COYD💙🖤 pic.twitter.com/lmbpeYDbSY
— Krakow Dragoons FC (@DragoonsFc) October 28, 2024
Coaches Corner
Hugo Cruz was left frustrated with the game, but commented positively, “The game started openly with both teams being careful but at the same time having the ability to create chances. I would say that after a couple of early chances for them, our team showed a good consistency in the first 10 mins, our defensive block was enough to contain the opposition’s transitional play.
We created some excellent chances to score, and when you don’t take your chances you leave yourself open to conceding. Sadly, this is what happened. We conceded 2 goals in a short period of time, but the boys kept going and we wasted further chances. Once the third goal goes in, heads drop, confidence drains, we stop communicating and playing the way I know we can.
In the second half, I made a change in order to nullify the threat down our left side. We started well, controlled the ball and kept their offensive movements at bay. But once again, we just couldn’t find bodies in the right areas or take our chances to score. Goals win and change games.
This was shown effectively by Orzeł, who punished our every mistake – we need to learn from these mistakes to stop this happening. We huffed and puffed, but we could still be there now and not score…”.
Summed Up
Hugo summed up the day saying, “Definitely not a good day at the office for us. Overall, it is games like today that we learn from. If we want to be at the top of the table, we need to be competent in every part of the game.
Today showed an excellent example that are just not competitive enough off the ball. Orzeł showed why they are the top scorers in the league so far. In order to beat a high scoring team, we need to stick to every detail of the job. You need to be disciplined all over the park, time runs better, if you lose possession then get back into your position. You must be focused for the whole 90 minutes and not lose the structure and shape of the team. We made mistakes in all those aspects and we were cruelly punished for it. That is football!
I do accept that we could be stood here talking about a 4-5 defeat as we created more than enough chances to keep our head above water. But that doesn’t matter. Football is not about ifs and buts, it’s about scoring goals to win games. We could have played like prime Barcelona, pretty tiki-taka football, but if you don’t put the ball into the net it counts for nothing.”.
Going Forward
Cruz added passionately, “Look, we lost the game. Ok, It happens, am I disappointed? Yes, of course. Can we fix it? Definitely. I need to reflect, discuss with the coaches and focus what we can do to fix the mistakes that we made. Believe me, the potential is there but potential doesn’t win games, right? We will look at what we can do to prepare the team with the finer details so we are better in the future.
I am sure everyone in the team will hit back and we must work harder in our aim to win every match we have in the league till winter the break. I believe we can do this and that starts with next week. Lastly, a big thanks to everyone that turned up today, I hope next time will be better.”.
Next Up
The Dragoons will need to be much better next weekend when they travel to face Czarni 03 Grzegorzowice.
Czarni are currently 8th in the table, four points behind the Dragoons having won four times and lost five in 9 games.
The two sides have played each other on two occasions, both last season with the Expats coming out on top twice. The first game saw the Dragoons win 2-0 with two goals from Vałdzis Fuhaš after Salah Missi had been sent off.
On the final day of the season both sides met once again with all three goals being scored by Poles. Błażej Święcicki opened the scoring from close range, before Kuba Drobny headed in a second. The final goal saw Jan Krzyżanowski score a pile-driver from outside the box to complete the season in style.
