Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter
In a little over 30 hours, Poland will be playing their first match of Euro 2024 as they take on the Netherlands in Hamburg. Both nations have seen victories in their two pre-tournament friendlies, and both come into this first game of Group D reeling from injury issues.
After Monday night’s dramatic 2-1 victory over Turkey, it was confirmed the next day that Robert Lewandowski has a small tear in his right hamstring and would categorically miss tomorrow’s match. There has been some suggestion, both from the Dutch coach Ronald Koeman and the German press, that Michał Probierz is bluffing over Lewandowski’s injury. Probierz has answered questions over this in press conferences that this is certainly not the case, although yesterday he was pictured at Poland’s base camp in Hannover doing gym work. Whilst it’s very doubtful he’ll even be on the bench, it was refreshing to hear Bartosz Slisz answering questions in the press conference on Wednesday that Lewandowski was not considered irreplaceable despite his obvious talents.
For the other injured players from Monday night, Karol Świderski returned to training with the team on Friday as did Paweł Dawidowicz. Whilst I wouldn’t expect Świderski to play 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon, I do expect him to appear off the bench at some point. Likewise, given how implicitly it seems that Probierz trusts Dawidowicz at the back, I’dd expect him to retain his place in the starting line-up. Speaking of, I expect it to look something like this:
Kacper Urbański has been nothing short of revelatory in the past two friendly matches, and Jakub Moder gave a very good second half performance on Monday night. I could see Sebastian Szymański getting some minutes as well, but I’m fairly confident that Probierz will pick a starting XI not too dissimilar to the one above.
As mentioned earlier, Holland are also suffering from injury issues, with both Frenkie De Jong and Teun Koopmeiners having to pull out through injury. Personally I think that Poland probably now have as good as or even perhaps a better midfield on paper than the Dutch, but whether or not that will come to pass tomorrow afternoon depends on many other factors.
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