Nations League | League A

Oct 15, 2024 at 7.45pm UK

Stadion Narodowy

Poland vs Croatia

Match preview

Trying to match Roberto Martinez's Portugal juggernaut proved too much for Poland on Saturday night, as Bernardo Silva and Cristiano Ronaldo gave the Selecao a two-goal lead before the half-time whistle.

Piotr Zielinski halved the arrears late on to set up a tense finish, only for Jan Bednarek to slot the ball past his own goalkeeper and restore Portugal's two-goal cushion in the dying minutes of the game, Poland's fourth defeat in their last six matches.

A five-goal thriller with Scotland was the perfect tonic for their early exit from the group stage, but successive defeats to Croatia and Portugal have left the Eagles languishing in third place in the section.

Such a position would force Michal Probierz's side to try and salvage their League A status via the relegation/promotion play-offs in the spring, but Scotland are only three points behind Poland, who are in serious danger of dropping out of the Nations League for the first time.

Poland lost the trio of Bartlomiej Dragowski, Mateusz Skrzypczak and Kacper Kozlowski before their defeat by Portugal, where defender Sebastian Walukiewicz was sent off at half-time.

However, the change may have been a tactical one for Probierz, who picked up a yellow card straight from the kick-off, with Arsenal's Jakub Kiwior a viable alternative.

The Eagles have also been beaten in each of their last three home games in the competition, scoring just once in the process, despite facing three European heavyweights in Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.

While Poland were left to rue what could have been against Ronaldo and Co, Croatia ensured that Ryan Christie's opener for Scotland in Zagreb would prove insignificant in the grand scheme of things as Zlatko Dalic's men fought back to leave Steve Clarke's side still searching for their first point of the section.

Igor Matanovic and Andrej Kramaric responded to Christie's opener before Che Adams thought he had restored parity for the visitors, only for the VAR room to deny the Torino striker and leave Croatia celebrating their second straight Nations League win.

Aiming to match or better last year's run to the final - when Spain denied them a long-awaited international title - the Chequered Ones currently sit in second place, three points behind perfect Portugal.

Having lost each of their first five Nations League matches away from home, the 2018 World Cup finalists have now won four of their last five away from home, the outlier being their narrow defeat to Portugal just over a month ago.

As for the visitors, Manchester City's Mateo Kovacic was absent from the match against Scotland due to the birth of his child, although Dalic is hopeful that he will be able to take part in Tuesday's contest.

Mario Pasalic was given the nod alongside the evergreen Modric at the weekend, but the Atalanta BC midfielder was hooked at half-time, so Kovacic is likely to be called upon to replace his former Chelsea man if he returns in time.

Croatia bounced back from that setback with a 1-0 win over Poland, Luka Modric scoring the winner on the day to make it four wins from six against the Eagles, whose only victory in the competition came in a 2006 friendly.

Recent Performance

Poland Nations League form:WLL

Poland form (all competitions):LLDWLL

Croatia Nations League form:LWW

Croatia form (all competitions):LDDLWW

Injuries and suspensions

Poland

-- Jakub Piotrowski

Croatia

8 Mateo Kovacic(uncertained)

Possible starting lineups

Poland possible starting lineup:

Skorupski; Dawidowicz, Bednarek, Kiwior; Frankowski, Zielinski, Szymanski, Urbanski, Zalewski; Piatek, Lewandowski

Croatia possible starting lineup:

Livakovic; Gvardiol, Caleta-Car, Sutalo; Perisic, Modric, Kovacic, Sosa; Sucic, Matanovic, Kramaric