Bosnia and Herzegovina sinks Poland on a penalty VAR waved off, then waved back in

A penalty call that was overturned by VAR, then overturned again a minute later, ended up deciding the game. That's how Bosnia and Herzegovina beat Poland 1-0 at Bilino Polje in the UEFA Nations League. The match looked headed for a scoreless draw until the 81st minute, when Jovo Lukic went down in the box after a foul by Jan Bednarek. The referee pointed to the spot, but a minute later VAR stepped in and reversed the call: no penalty. The reprieve didn't last long, though. Just a minute after that, in the 83rd minute, Ivan Basic still got his penalty and buried it, curling a left-footed shot into the top right corner. Bednarek, for what it's worth, had already picked up a yellow card somewhere in the middle of that back-and-forth.

The strange part is that the goal came almost against the run of play. Poland controlled large stretches of the 90 minutes, dominating possession, creating more chances and finishing with more shots on target. But they lacked the finishing touch, or the home defense held its shape just enough, because none of those chances found the net.

A tight, scoreless first half

The first half had everything but a goal. Bosnia and Herzegovina started the brighter of the two sides, with early chances from Sead Kolasinac and Ermedin Demirovic inside the opening two minutes, but Poland gradually took control as the half wore on. Jakub Kiwior and Mateusz Zukowski both tested the keeper before the 15-minute mark, and later in the half Jan Bednarek had a header and Przemyslaw Frankowski tried his luck from outside the box, without success. Stoppage time brought more Polish attempts, from Piotr Zielinski and Frankowski again, but the sides went into the break scoreless.

In the second half, Poland kept pushing with the ball but without enough precision: Zielinski, Karol Swiderski, Zukowski and Kiwior all had chances at different points, several of them off corner kicks, in a stretch where the home side struggled to contain the Polish wide play. Bosnia and Herzegovina, meanwhile, grew stronger as the substitutions came on: Esmir Bajraktarevic, Benjamin Tahirovic, Samed Bazdar and Jovo Lukic all entered in the second half and added fresh legs to the home attack right as the game was being decided.

The numbers behind a Poland-dominated match

Our own xG estimate, based on the shots taken in the match, backs up that sense of a closely matched danger level despite the lopsided possession: 1.229 for Bosnia and Herzegovina against 1.468 for Poland. In other words, the visitors generated a bit more threat but couldn't turn it into a goal, while the home side made do with the single shot on target they needed.

Heading into the match, our projection gave Bosnia and Herzegovina a 36% chance of winning, 30% for a draw and 34% for Poland, with an expected total of 2.55 goals between both sides. The final result, a single goal scored from the penalty spot, came in under that goal expectation, though the home win itself fell within what we had projected.

What it means in Group B4

With this result, Bosnia and Herzegovina moves to 8 points in Group B4, just 4 behind leaders Sweden, who sit on 10. Poland, for its part, remains on 4 points. So far in the tournament, Bosnia and Herzegovina have two wins and two draws without a loss, while Poland have one win, one draw and two losses. The victory keeps the home side in the hunt at the top of the group, while Poland need to close that gap as soon as possible.