Austria pick up a vital win in Berlin to keep alive their hopes of progressing to the Euro 2024 last 16. Check out the best facts and analyse the Opta data with our Poland vs Austria stats page.
Second-half goals from Christoph Baumgartner and Marko Arnautovic gave Austria a vital victory over Poland in Berlin. After a defeat to France in their opening game, three points were much needed to give them a chance of progressing to the knockout stage of Euro 2024.
Gernot Trauner opened the scoring for Austria after only nine minutes – their earliest European Championship goal of all-time. Meeting Phillipp Mwene’s dinked cross, Trauner had to both direct the header and generate enough power on it to beat Wojciech Szczesny in the Polish goal. It was an excellent finish, and one that brought the Feyenoord defender just his second international goal for Austria.
Ralf Rangnick’s side failed to build on their lead, however, and Poland equalised on the half-hour mark. After some pinballing in the Austria box following a corner, Krzysztof Piatek fired into the back of the net to score his first international goal since November 2022.
With Robert Lewandowski still only on the bench due to injury, the pressure was on the other Polish strikers to find the goals at Euro 2024, and Piatek’s goal today followed Adam Buksa’s in the Matchday 1 loss to the Netherlands.
Poland attempted to tilt the game in their favour by bringing Lewandowski off the bench on the hour mark, but it was Austria who capitalised to go back ahead in the 66th minute via the excellent Baumgartner.
His fifth international goal of 2024 came after a clever dummy from captain Arnautovic saw the ball reach him on the half-turn, before he took a touch and slotted past Szczesny. That took him to 16 goals overall for Austria, which is more than any other player since winning his first cap in September 2020.
The RB Leipzig attacking midfielder entered the tournament in good form, scoring two of their three goals across the two warm-up matches versus Serbia and Switzerland, and this strike gave him his second major tournament goal for his country after his winner against Ukraine at Euro 2020.
Arnautovic scored himself with a 78th-minute penalty, sending Szczesny the wrong way after the goalkeeper had conceded the spot-kick, fouling Marcel Sabitzer after he raced through on goal. Arnautovic moved to 37 goals for his country, now just seven away from Toni Polster’s record tally of 44.
Regardless of the result in the match later on Friday between Netherlands and France, Austria know that a win in their final game versus the Dutch next Tuesday will be enough to send them to the last 16 – even if it’s via being one of the best third-place teams in the group stage.
For Poland, this result means they have lost two European Championship matches in a row for the first time ever and are on the verge of exiting the tournament. Few will be expecting them to upset France next week, and the Opta supercomputer seems to agree. Following this game, it projects Poland to reach the last 16 in just 2.0% of simulations.
Our Opta match centre delivers you all the Poland vs Austria stats from their Euro 2024 Group D clash at the Olympiastadion Berlin.
The match centre below includes team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do your own match analysis.
Underneath the match centre you can find the official Opta stats on the game as well.
Poland vs Austria Stats: Post-Match Facts
- Austria picked up their first ever win over Poland in a competitive international (P7 W1 D2 L4), and their first in six meetings overall (D2 L3) since a 4-3 friendly win in May 1994.
- Poland have lost four consecutive matches at major international tournaments (two at 2022 World Cup, two at Euro 2024) for just the second time, after also losing four in a row across the 1986 and 2002 World Cups.
- Austria have lost just two of their last 18 matches in all competitions (W13 D3), with those defeats coming to the top two ranked UEFA nations in FIFA’s rankings (Belgium, 2-3 in October 2023, and France, 0-1 in this EUROs).
- Gernot Trauner’s goal in the 9th minute was Austria’s fastest ever scored at the Euros, and fastest at a major tournament (World Cup/Euros) since the 1954 World Cup, when they scored twice within the opening four minutes vs Czechoslovakia.
- Christoph Baumgartner and Marko Arnautovic became the first players to score more than one goal for Austria at the UEFA European Championship, having both also scored at Euro 2020. Baumgartner has scored in six of his last seven appearances for his country in all competitions.
- Aged 35 years and 73 days, Marko Arnautovic was Austria’s second-oldest major tournament goalscorer (World Cup/Euros), after Ivica Vastic, who also netted a penalty against Poland at EURO 2008 (38y 257d).
- Krzysztof Piatek was the seventh player to score for Poland at the UEFA European Championship, and the fifth of those seven to do so on his debut in the competition, along with Robert Lewandowski (2012), Arkadiusz Milik (2016), Karol Linetty (2020), and Adam Buksa (2024).
- Gernot Trauner scored his first competitive goal for Austria, and was the second player to score on his first European Championship start for the nation, after Stefan Lainer vs North Macedonia at the 2020 edition.
- Kamil Grosicki (36 years, 13 days) and Robert Lewandowski (35 years, 305 days) became Poland’s oldest ever appearance makers at a major tournament (World Cup/Euros), both surpassing Jacek Bak (35y 80d at Euro 2008).
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