Poland grateful for Perquis header

Damien Perquis headed the only goal of the game on 30 minutes as Poland overcame Slovakia, with Franciszek Smuda to name his 23-man UEFA EURO 2012 squad tomorrow.

Having not played since breaking his elbow in March, the FC Sochaux-Montbéliard man was not fully fit as he took to the pitch in Klagenfurt, Austria. However, the French-born defender, who has a Polish grandmother was nimble enough to get on the end of a splendid Łukasz Piszczek ball on the half hour and open his account for the national team.

Maciej Rybus had fired wide after nine minutes for Poland, and Marcin Wasilewski was off target with a header five minutes later. The target then eluded Ludovic Obraniak from 20 metres after he was set up by Jakub Błaszczykowski. The pressure continued with Eugen Polanski unable to find the target from distance on 25 minutes, but Slovakia had a sight of goal soon afterwards, though Erik Jendrišek failed to lift the ball over Wojciech Szczęsny in the Poland goal.

Perquis's goal swiftly restored Poland's composure, with Rybus hitting the post in the closing stages of the first half and Marek Hamšík drew another save from Szczęsny before the interval. Dariusz Dudka passed up a great chance after the break, firing over from under the shadow of the goal from Obraniak's ball, and there were some nervy moments for the UEFA EURO 2012 co-hosts before the end, with Marek Čech testing Szczęsny again before a Sebastian Boenisch mistake almost gifted Slovakia an equaliser.

Smuda will name his finals squad on Sunday, with a friendly game against Andorra in Warsaw on 2 June Poland's next engagement before they kick-off UEFA EURO 2012 with their opening game against Greece six days later.