Vienna: Poland's players and coaching staff woke up on Friday nursing a massive sense of injustice and with only four days to pick themselves up for a game that might yet save their Euro 2008 campaign.
Everything was going swimmingly for the Poles in the match until the controversial injury-time penalty that allowed Austria to snatch a 1-1 draw in their Group B game on Thursday.
The result leaves Poland almost certainly facing elimination before their final game against Croatia in Klagenfurt on Monday.
A big win plus an unlikely, slimmer victory for Austria over Germany would only send the Poles through.
Coach Leo Beenhakker, however, had no illusions about what lies ahead as he fumed in the wake of Thursday's draw.
"Probably tomorrow I might think differently but for the moment our conclusion is that we are out of the tournament," he said.
"I have to raise my own feelings first and then I'll start with the boys, but it hurts. We are human."
Beenhakker did not deny that Mariusz Lewandowski had been holding Sebastian Proedl as they jostled for a twice-taken free kick three minutes into added time.
Yellow cards
He could not understand, however, why the referee chose to penalise such behaviour despite what Beenhakker suggested was its widespread and unpunished prevalence in previous games in the tournament.
"Since the tournament started I've seen free wrestling at free-kicks and corners and several divers but no yellow cards," he said.
"Today was nothing unusual... I've been 43 years in this business, I always accept referee's decisions but this is something I really can't understand in relation to other situations."
"You can imagine, it's pretty hard to take," said Poland keeper Artur Boruc.
"I don't think we deserved that in the last few seconds and I don't think it was a penalty, especially so because it was an English referee," he added in reference to Howard Webb's week-to-week experience of the rough and tumble of the Premier League.
