Late penalty gives Austria draw

By Trevor Huggins

VIENNA (Reuters) - An injury-time penalty by Ivica Vastic earned co-hosts Austria a dramatic 1-1 draw with Poland at Euro 2008 on Thursday.

A confident Vastic showed no sign of nerves as he sent goalkeeper Artur Boruc the wrong way from the spot after Sebastian Proedl had his shirt pulled by Mariusz Lewandowski in the 93rd minute.

The 38-year-old attacking midfielder became the oldest man to score in the finals, surpassing the record held by former Portugal player Nene who was 34 when he netted against Romania in 1984.

Earlier, Brazilian-born striker Roger Guerreiro gave Poland a fortunate first-half lead.

Guerreiro, who was only granted citizenship in April, was clearly offside when he scored his first goal for his adopted country from a 30th-minute scramble at the Ernst Happel Stadium.

Austria and Poland have one point in Group B, with Germany on three and Croatia top on six and certain of a place in the quarter-finals.

Second place in the table will be decided on Monday when Germany play Austria and Croatia meet Poland.

The co-hosts paid the price for squandering a host of early opportunities that could have comfortably won them the game.

"We had our chances in the first 20, 30 minutes," said Austria coach Josef Hickersberger. "Whether their goal was offside or whether (our goal) was a penalty, I couldn't judge from my position.

GREAT PASSION

"The performance of the team was very good once again. They played with great passion. We saw what we already knew, that Poland have a very strong team."

Poland coach Leo Beenhakker said the late penalty was a bitter pill to swallow.

"It is impossible to accept but I'm working on it," said the Dutchman. "In the first 20 minutes we started badly but after that we scored a good goal and then the second half we were very good."

Having only threatened Croatia in the final 20 minutes on Sunday, Hickersberger told his side to go out guns blazing against the Poles.

The message got through and his team should have been 3-0 up inside 20 minutes after Poland's ramshackle defense was repeatedly split wide open for a player to run through.