Robert Lewandowski, the star striker and Poland captain, missed a chance to put Poland ahead in their Group C match against Mexico on Tuesday after he failed to net from the spot.
Lewandowski, who has scored 76 goals overall for Poland, is the nation’s top goal scorer so far. After a VAR review, the penalty was given to the Barcelona striker as Hector Moreno was found guilty of grabbing his shirt and bringing him to the ground by force.
Before making the attempt, he took a big breath. Guillermo Ochoa, who is competing in his fifth World Cup, dove to make the stop and then yelled in delight upon rising, inciting the audience to scream “Memo!”
Watch the thrilling save by Ochoa here.
“From the start we knew we had a tricky group,” Ochoa said at the end of the match. “We wouldn’t underestimate any opponent. We have a tough opponent in the next game. But Mexico is also a tough team,” he added.
El Tri had four efforts on target, but Poland goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny stopped all of them despite having the majority of the possession.
Mexico has advanced to the round of 16 in each of the last seven World Cups, but it has yet to win a “quinto partido,” or fifth game. Their best performance in a World Cup was reaching the quarter-finals while serving as hosts in 1970 and 1986.
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Poland was participating in its second straight World Cup. In 2018, the team lost at the group stage.
“It is a pity we weren’t able to score. But it was a close match and there weren’t very many opportunities on both sides,” Poland coach Czeslaw Michniewicz said at the end of the match.
Poland will next face group leader Saudi Arabia on Saturday, November 26, followed by Argentina on Thursday, December 1.
