Poland's build-up bad, but Ecuador's worse

Group A/Poland v Ecuador: Little is expected of them outside of their homeland, but the Poles arrived in Germany almost unnoticed in 1974 only for the likes of Kazimierz Denya and Gregorz Lato to set the tournament alight as the team overwhelmed a string of fancied sides on the way to third place.

Now, Pawel Janas and his largely unknown squad come to town hoping history will repeat itself, and while it seems an even longer shot now than it must have then, a win this evening would go a long way towards booking their place in the knock-out stages.

Some disappointing results in recent friendlies have prompted a tactical rethink, with Janas adopting the same 4-5-1 approach employed so profitably in 1974 earlier this week when his side scored a welcome 2-1 victory over Croatia.

Assuming the 53-year-old persists with the new approach, an even greater burden of responsibility will be placed on the team's two Bundesliga players - Jacek Krzynowek and Euzebiusz (Ebi) Smolarek - whose chief task will be to take on and beat players in order to create chances for Celtic striker Mariej Zurawski.

Smolarek, the 25-year-old son of Wlodzimierz who played in the 1982 finals when Poland also finished third, is a quick and gifted striker who has scored 15 goals this season, his first full campaign since joining Borussia Dortmund from Feyenoord.

He has nothing like the physical presence of his father, one of the reasons Janas prefers to play him out wide, but having grown up in the Netherlands (his Polish is not even that great) he has been well equipped technically and looks comfortable with the ball.

His winner against Croatia, an important boost to a team that has lost to the US, Colombia and even Lithuania during the build-up, was his fourth for his country, still some way short of the 13 achieved by his father, who recently teased him on national television that they can not even compare their respective international careers until junior has featured in two World Cups.

Meaningful talk may begin sooner than that, however, if he can make a significant impact this evening against Ecuador, when the Poles need to break their habit of failing to score in their first outing at World Cups.

If Poland's recent results have been less than inspiring, they can take consolation from the fact Ecuador's have bordered on the abysmal: they haven't won since they beat Honduras on home soil in January.

In qualifying, they got the better of Brazil and Argentina at home, where the air is suitably thin, and their only away win came in Bolivia, also at considerable altitude. This will be their second World Cup and they arrive with eight of the squad that competed in Japan and Korea, including Ivan Hurtado, a 31-year-old defender with 130 caps, and former Southampton striker Agustin Delgado.