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So this is the flip side of the glory.

For every 1974 or 1982, there’s a 1978 or a 2002. Or a 2006.

“Germany stuns Poland in 91st minute” read the headlines today and, yes, Polska backers must still be stunned this morning after a game with which their eleven could have used to at least save face slipped agonizingly off the foot of a German substitute and through their fingers.

Germany 1, Poland 0.

It shouldn’t have happened this way. Team Poland benefitted from simply awesome play from goalkeeper (yes, really a keeper this time) Artur Boruc, who gave up the body repeatedly in stopping bullet after bullet to a superman’s total of 23 shots, ten on goal.

Poland played eighty-nine minutes of excellent (okay, good enough) football, adopting the necessary do-or-die attitude and stopping waves of German blitzkriegs, particularly in the first half. At midway, the possession clock read 57-43 Deutschland; by game’s end that would be 51-49 Poland as the red and white owned the ball in the last forty-five minutes.

It shouldn’t have happened this way. The Bielo-czerwoni completed their 98.9% well-played regulation time with a heat-stopping 1.1% worth of luck in a heart-stopping 90th, which had German shots hitting crossbar and post when Boruc couldn’t stop them.

And at essentially the same moment the international broadcast told us of additional time, Odonkor and Neuville’s lightning hit, and Poland fans were thunderstruck. Kaboom. Goal. Final score: Germany 1, Poland o.

All right, so technically it’s not over yet and i am a staunch believer in “it ain’t over ’til et cetera et cetera,” but now the odds are longer than the plane flight back to Poland will be.

Football can be a cruel, unforgiving game. It shouldn’t have happened this way, but it did.

And now we wait for another chance far far in the future…