Messi and Lewandowski set to deal for high stakes

Argentinian talisman and Poland's clinical striker will square up in a meeting to reach the knockout stages

- Louise Taylor

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the sharpest of them all? Tonight all eyes at Stadium 974 will be drawn, inexorably, to football’s version of a beauty contest: can Lionel Messi’s rich attacking gifts guide Argentina into the knockout phase or might Robert Lewandowski’s uncanny efficiency in front of goal enable Poland to eclipse the Group C favourites?

“We rely on these great strikers but an individual cannot win alone,” Czeslaw Michniewicz, Poland’s head coach, said yesterday. “But it’s not only a battle between Lewandowski and Messi – it’s not tennis, it’s not one-on-one, they are not serving! Robert needs his teammates, the same as Leo.”

Nonetheless, Michniewicz, whose side top Group C, one point ahead of Argentina, likens the South American team’s talisman to the famous 80s and 90s Italian alpine ski champion Alberto Tomba. “At our team briefing we talked about Alberto Tomba on the slope; he was able to avoid everyone,” the 52-year-old said. “So I need to put my players in positions to make a difference because, if not, Messi will score easily. You need more than one person to halt him.”