Poland - Group C
After failing to progress beyond the group stages when they co-hosted the competition in 2012, Poland are looking to bounce back at Euro 2016. Once against matched up with old enemies the Germans, Poland will be looking to progress out of Group C.
Get to know: Poland
An eye-catching 2-0 win in Warsaw against Germany set the tone for Poland’s European qualification campaign and when you have a world-class striker like Robert Lewandowski in your side you’ve always got a chance of scoring enough goals to win plenty of games. The Bayern man was prolific in qualification scoring a whopping 13 goals and ending up as the overall leading goal scorer.
In the group stages, they won 6 games, drew 3 and lost 1, scoring 33 goals, conceding 10 and ending up with a +23 goal difference.
In the draw for the main event, Poland were placed in Group C, alongside Germany (again), Northern Ireland and Ukraine.
Fixtures:
June 12 vs. Northern Ireland 4pm – Allianz Riviera, Nice
June 15 vs. Germany 7pm – Stade de France, Saint-Denis
June 21 vs. Ukraine 4pm – Parc des Princes, Paris
Goal scorers:
During qualification, Poland scored 31 goals
Their goal scorers were:
- Robert Lewandowski (13)
- Arkadiusz Milik (6)
- Kamil Grosicki (4)
- Grzegorz Krychowiak (2)
- Sebastian Mila (2)
- Jakub Błaszczykowski (1)
- Kamil Glik (1)
- Bartosz Kapustka (1)
- Krzysztof Mączyński (1)
- Sławomir Peszko (1)
- Łukasz Szukała (1)
Qualification Stat Truths:
- Scored at the highest rate during qualifying, netting 33 times in 10 games i.e. 3.3 goals per game. 15 of those came against Gibraltar, but they still managed to score as many goals past Germany as they conceded in return (2-0 win and 1-3 defeat).
- Most clinical attack: 4.0 shots taken per goal scored.
- Scored in every qualifying match.
- Scored first in 9/10 of their qualifying matches.
- Didn’t concede a single headed goal in qualifying.
- Scored the most headed goals in qualifying (7).
- Most accurate shooters of any qualifier, getting 53.4% of their shots on target.
- Joint-highest shot conversion from headers of any team in qualifying (33.3% or 7/21).
- Highest shot conversion from outside the box of any team in qualifying (13.3% – way higher than average 4.2%).
- Best shot conversion in the second half of matches of any side at the finals (30.6%).
All data based on Poland’s Euro 2016 qualification campaign. Courtesy of the Press Association.