At today’s draw in Zurich, Poland discovered their World Cup qualifying group for the coming year.
After a difficult past few months for Poland and Selekcjoner Michał Probierz, there was a glimmer of hope that Poland would find themselves in a group where qualification was highly likely, given the relative strength of whoever their opponents might be.
As it turned out, this was somewhat the case, as Poland were drawn into Group G. Poland will face Finland, Lithuania, Malta and one of either Spain or the Netherlands as they endeavour to reach the final tournament in North America.
Optimism should be high, given that Finland were one of the more favourable teams Poland could’ve faced out of the third pot, and Lithuania aren’t one of the stronger Baltic nations at the moment.
Regardless of Poland facing Spain or the Netherlands, they are unlikely to come out on the right side of a result, but could hopefully endeavour to a draw in the home qualifier.
The expectation should be tempered, however, given we all know how it went the last time Poland were expected to qualify to a tournament with little difficulty. Probierz himself acknowledged this when speaking about the draw, but it should be possible for Poland to achieve second place in this group with minimum stress.
That will all depend on marked improvements from the Nations League matches, in which other than a strong second half at home to Croatia, a solid first half away to Portugal and a fortunate (if resilient) victory in Glasgow against Scotland, Poland weren’t really able to perform to the expected standard either in terms of ability or result.
Ordering and other fixture details are yet to be announced, but hopefully this round of qualifying will start on a better footing for Poland than Euro 2024 qualifying did.
For more, follow @ekstraklasaexp on Twitter and @ekstraklasaexports on Instagram to know when new posts go live.
תגובות