Lewandowski returns but Poland beaten by Austria

Poland's all-time top scorer Robert Lewandowski returned off the substitutes' bench in their 3-1 loss to Austria on Friday at Berlin's Olympiastadion.

The Barcelona striker suffered a thigh injury in their final warmup match last week and had missed the 2-1 defeat to the Netherlands in their opening group game.

Lewandowski came off the bench in the 60th minute against Austria, replacing Krzysztof Piatek with the score tied at 1-1.

However, he failed to make an impact and Austria went on to score twice more courtesy of Christoph Baumgartner and Marko Arnautovic to leave Poland bottom of Group D and without a point after two matches.

To avoid elimination, Poland need the Netherlands to beat France in a later Group D match on Friday.

Piatek scored Poland's only goal, in the 30th minute, equalising after Gernot Trauner's opener for Austria.

Austria coach Ralf Rangnick had switched his frontline at the start, introducing veteran Marko Arnautovic as their lone striker in the place of Michael Gregoritsch.

He also dropped centrebacks Kevin Danso and Maximilian Woeber, bringing in Philipp Lienhart and Gernot Trauner.

The injury to Lewandowski, who has scored 82 goals for his country, has been a major setback for Poland.

Despite Barça ending the season without a trophy, he still managed 26 goals in 49 appearances, taking his total for the LaLiga side to 59 in 95 games since signing from Bayern Munich in 2022.

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.