Celtic 3-0: A little redemption for Zurawski and Boruc

Though vanquished last Wednesday by the Americans, Maciej Zurawski and Artur Boruc should soon have sceptics writing the poor friendly result off to dumb luck. Celtic overcame Aberdeen with an easy 3-0 victory at Celtic Park, with both Team Poland members well contributing to the win. Aberdeen had been undefeated since 26 December, but this statistic was quickly made irrelevant by a relentless Celtic squad.

Zurawski showed no signs of injury whatsoever, by all accounts on top of his game and showing the form that has netted him an incredible ten goals in eight matches for Celtic, plus another four in two matches for Team Poland just prior. After the teams went to half at 0-0, Celtic’s attack spearheaded by Zurawski, Stilian Petrov, and Shaun Maloney came back on the field with purpose.

In the 65th minute, Celtic finally broke through. Zurawski caught up with the long ball launched by Roy Keane and sent a cut back to Petrov. Petrov scored on the eight-yarder and Celtic was on the board. After Maloney’s goal in the 75th, Zurawski went to work again.

Aberdeen had been forced to sub in another striker after Petrov’s goal, and after Maloney’s disheartening second, Celtic was able to move the ball at will, allowing Zurawski a tally with three minutes left to play. This time it was Keane to Petrov to Zurawski, followed by Zurawski hitting the back of the net.

Meanwhile, Boruc saw extremely little action in the first half; probably just what the doctor ordered after some of the gentler takes on Boruc’ performance in the friendly explained away the American goal by its surprising nature. In minute 65, Boruc was able to fend off his first real challenge: A strike from Scott Severin that Boruc gathered in with little effort.

A slew stories have seen print recently regarding Celtic’s Maciej Zurawski and Artur Boruc following the U.S. friendly. (To tell the truth, actually quite a few words have been devoted to the latter since Wednesday.) Speculation particularly dogged Zurawski, as he pulled himself from the U.S. match before it even began, setting off rumors of the return of the hamstring injury that sidelined him for two months last year. Depending from which side you read, ratings of Boruc’ performance ranged from “bad” to “could get him excised from the Poland squad.” And many stories have run with Coach Janas’ “he has to do more than say he’s sorry” comment.

Hopefully, the convincing 3-0 Celtic triumph will convince a few. With one or two more performances in a similar vein, the frustrations of the blizzard game should wear off in time for Germany 2006. Zurawski himself refused to take the loss to the U.S. very seriously in the press, stating plainly that “It’s not that relevant that we lost to the USA this week or that Germany were defeated by the Italians.”

There’s a nice piece in The Scotsman (thanks for the heads up, Bob) focusing on Zurawski and Boruc, including a vote of confidence from Poland’s football god (and Celtic alumnus) Zbigniew “Zibi” Boniek. Boniek states that Zurawski is in fact the brightest Polish hope for World Cup glory: “Whereas we have a lot of other good players who are unknown and relatively inexperienced,” Boniek said, “Zurawski stands out for me.”