Poland coach predicts early exit

Poland coach Pawel Janas warned his team that they would have to improve on their 1-0 loss to Lithuania or face a first-round exit from the World Cup.

Slack defending and a lacklustre second-half performance resulted in an understrength Poland side losing their second match in three games. After the match Janas said he might have to rethink his options before naming his final 23-man squad on May 15.

"I had in my notebook a group of players but a number are simply out of form," he said. "In the form we saw today, we have no chance of getting out of the group at the finals."

In March the Poles won 2-1 against fellow finalists Saudi Arabia but were unlucky losers 1-0 to the US in Kaiserslautern.

Deprived of much of his first choice squad on Tuesday, Janas's makeshift back four were caught napping by a quick throw-in, flicked on for Andrius Gedgaudas to volley home unchallenged from eight metres.

The Poles dominated for the rest of the first half and went close with drives from Miroslaw Szymkowiak and Sebastian Mila.

But the Lithuanians should have doubled their lead when Irmandas Zelmikas found himself unmarked in the box after 40 minutes only to put his header just over Jerzy Dudek's bar.

Three changes at half-time gave the Poles firmer control without creating many clear-cut openings for a front pairing of Southampton's Gregorz Rasiak and Wolves' Tomasz Frankowski.

The Poles play home side Germany, Ecuador and Costa Rica in Group A at the World Cup finals.