Piast Gliwice 4-3 Wisla Krakow: Ekstraklasa Second Round Thriller
Piast Gliwice and Wisla Krakow met in the second round of the Ekstraklasa regular season on Saturday, and what followed was a seven-goal spectacle that left the home side breathing easy. The match ended 4-3 to Piast after a frantic final twenty minutes that saw both sides trading blows. And here's the thing — nobody saw it coming, least of all the away team who arrived with more points on the board.
Piast struck first through Samuel Ntamack in the seventeenth minute, then doubled their advantage when Hugo Vallejo found the net thirty-two minutes in. Wisla responded through Jordi Sanchez in the thirty-eighth, but the visitors could not hold their nerve. By then, Mateusz Bozic had a penalty saved at the turn of the half, and you could sense the momentum shifting.
The second half belonged to drama. Bozic equalised from play in the fifty-fifth minute, only for Jakub Labojko to restore Piast's lead with a penalty in the sixty-fifth. Sanchez completed his brace sixty-nine minutes in, and for a moment Wisla looked like they might claw their way back. Then Loris Sanca put the game to bed in the eighty-eighth minute.
Substitutions came thick and fast, with Piast bringing on Mateusz Kuziemka and Ivan Lima at the break, while Wisla introduced Radek Giger earlier. By the final whistle, Piast had made four changes, including a double substitution in the seventy-third and seventy-fourth minutes that showed their confidence was growing.
The statistics tell a partial story. Wisla dominated possession at 53 per cent and registered twelve shots on target compared to Piast's eight, yet they could only convert three. Piast created five big chances to the visitors' ten, but clinical finishing from their forwards proved decisive. To be fair, the away side's goalkeeper made only four saves while Piast's keeper saved nine.
The result moves Piast closer to the top half, though they remain sixth with ten points from seven games. Wisla stay fourth on fourteen points from eight matches, but this was a result that could not afford another slip of this nature. The home side now have hit a wall of confidence, while the visitors will be asking questions in the dressing room.