Lewandowski in the lurch as Poland stumble

Moscow (dpa) - Robert Lewandowski's hopes of competing for the honour of World Cup top scorer, after another season as the Bundesliga's leading goal-getter, dwindled after Poland's 2-1 defeat against Senegal. Lewandowski had bagged a European top mark of 16 goals, one more than Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, during qualifying, and Poland had arrived in Russia with two of the striker's goals in a 4-0 drubbing of Lithuania in a friendly a week ago.
As one of the top seeds in the draw in December, Adam Nawalka's side were expected to progress from Group H against Senegal, Colombia and Japan - and Lewandowski to be one of the standout players at his first World Cup. Now they are fighting for survival after a poor performance in the Spartak Stadium in which Lewandowski, Poland's all-time leading scorer with 55 goals in 95 internationals before Tuesday, disappointed.
The Bayern Munich striker was barely in the game in the first half and his only shot on goal was a second-half free-kick saved by keeper Khadmim Ndiaye. With Poland's main strengths seemingly in attacking areas rather than defence, Nawalka chose a line-up to incorporate Napoli midfielder Piotr Zielinski with the emphasis on going forward. He changed to three at the back after the break after a first-half injury to midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski on the Wolfsburg player's 100th appearance for the national side.
"I believe that was not the main reason we lost," Nawalka said of his tactics. "We simply lacked quality in the first half. There were a lot of unnecessary mistakes and lack of accuracy. We didn't play fluently." Lewandowski could only watch as Thiago Cionek deflected into his own net in the first half and a mix-up led to Mbaye Niang scoring in the second. "Things like that should not happen at a World Cup," he said.
"There was a lack of communication. We have gifted Senegal two goals." Lewandowski had dismissed talk of a Golden Boot tournament to match Poland great Grzegorz Lato in 1974 when the national team reached the semi-finals in Germany. He had said in interviews he expected to be tightly marked by defenders, perhaps freeing up room for others.
But Lewandowski was fouled only once the entire game, when making a run which led to his free-kick, and saw too little of the ball. A Golden Boot is now looking even more unrealistic, unless Poland can improve vastly against Colombia in Kazan on Sunday, and Japan in Volgograd on June 28. "In the second game we will play differently, we will play better. We don't have a choice," Lewandowski said.