Tytonic Save Rescues Poland

Poland Line-Up: Szczesny, Wasilewski, Perquis, Boenisch, Piszczek, Blaszczykowski (c), Obraniak, Polanski, Murawski, Lewandowski, Rybus (Tyton, 70')
Greece Line-Up: Chalkias, A.Papadopoulos (K.Papadopoulos, 35'), Papastathopoulos, Holebas, Torosidis, Karagounis (c), Maniatis, Katsouranis, Gekas (Fortounis, 68') , Samaras, Ninis (Salpingidis, 45')

A penalty save from substitute goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton saw hosts Poland begin Euro 2012 with a point. The opening game had everything you could want in a match as both teams scored and also had a man sent off.

Poland had much the better start as Greece looked to play extremely defensive. This caused their own downfall when Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski headed a cross home on 17-minutes to send the partisan crowd in hysterics. Greece still had very little to offer throughout the half and would soon get wound up with soft refereeing decisions from the Spanish official. Sokratis Papastathopoulos received a yellow card whilst aerially challenging Lewandowski and seemingly did nothing wrong. Raful Murawski then looked to slip before going over another challenge by the Greek defender and the referee wasted no time in showing a second yellow right before half-time.

The half-time team talk looked to have got Greece going in the second half and the introduction of Dimitris Salpingidis paid dividends. Within six minutes of the kick-off, the substitute took full advantage when Wojiech Szczesny came and failed to collect a cross, allowing the Greek to stab the ball home. Szczesny's night got worse 20-minutes from time when Salpingidis was put through before the keeper brought him down in the box. The Arsenal stopper received a red card for denying a goal stopping opportunity. Second choice keeper, Tyton, had to be brought on and he dramatically saved captain Giorgos Karagounis' penalty to earn the vital point.