They failed more. We hold the Lech Poznań players responsible

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Joel Pereira

Fans and experts’ high expectations towards individual players usually come from their previous skills and achievements. Joel Pereira used to play an excellent game, characterized by crosses from the right side. However, the Portuguese was a shadow of himself on this tour. Recently, Coleurs’ attacks on his flank caused panic among the opponent’s ranks, as Pereira sent his crosses directly into the heads of the players attacking the goal. The best evidence of this is the 23 assists he has scored in all competitions since the 2021/22 season.

The 27-year-old will also end the current season with five plays leading up to the subsequent goal. However he recorded them all during the fall tour. In the spring, Pereira was remembered only once – during the home confrontation with Pogo (1-0), when he scored a second-order assist by perfectly serving Bartosz Salamon, who passed the ball to Mikael Isak. However, this is definitely not enough. On this tour, balls passing through Pereira’s centers reached the advertising boards more often than they did to his teammates.

Bartosz Salamon, Miha Blazic, Antonio Milic

This group of centre-backs, which also includes the injured Philippe Dagerstal, can easily be considered the strongest in the PKO BP Ekstraklasa. However, that was not true, because the Colliers defense was embarrassed several times in this round, regardless of who was among the three on the field. In March, Rakov Czinstochova scored four goals for Lech, a month later the Poznań defense was mocked by Puszcza Niepołomice with Kamil Zabolnik up front, and a few weeks later this was done by the players of ŁKS and Ruch, who relegated four goals. Total times against the Couriers. This is despite Bartosz Mrozek’s impressive performance between the two posts. The KKS goalkeeper is one of the few who can consider this spring a success.

For a time, Lech’s defense was defended by the fact that they were unbeaten in five consecutive home matches. Marius Romak’s defenders made this argument during the match against Legia (1:2), when Miha Blazic and Bartosz Slamon scored own goals and resulted in a bizarre defeat in a prestigious match. Although we are talking about the representatives of Slovenia and Poland, none of them will look at this tour positively, quite the opposite. Both will be remembered for giving victory to their eternal rival on their home turf.