It ended 0-0 at Stadion Zagłębia on Saturday evening, and by then you could see where the game was going. Zagłębie Lubin and Pogoń Szczecin met in the sixth round of the Ekstraklasa, and neither side could find a way through. It was a flat affair, and the result keeps both sides level on points.
And here's the thing — the turning point came early. Filip Čuić picked up a red card for Pogoń in the twenty-third minute, and the visitors have been playing with one foot behind since. They had to shuffle their shape, switch to a back three in spirit if not on paper, and spent the rest of the half keeping their side in it.
Zagłębie dominated possession at sixty-three per cent and threw 105 attacks at the visitors, creating three big chances. Pogoń managed just 81 attacks and one big chance, but they defended deep and stayed compact. The visitors' goalkeeper made six saves, while the home keeper had only one to make. Many shots with one goal would have meant chances went begging, but here there were no goals at all.
There were seven yellow cards in total — four for the hosts, three for the visitors — and the game got chippy around the middle of the pitch. Kamil Nowogoński and Kellyn Acosta both went off at half-time, replaced by D. Churlinov and Benjamin Mendy respectively. Pogoń brought on Michalis Kosidis and M. Mlinaric in the sixty-ninth minute, trying to find something.
Both sides arrive at this point level on eight points after five games. Zagłębie sit ninth, Pogoń seventh, and the gap between them is nothing. The clean-sheet run came to an end for neither side, and the result feels like a point each was worth. It was a match decided by moments, and the only moment that mattered was a red card.