Reporting Sports in a refreshing style

Spain v Poland: What the stats say ahead of Euro 2020 cracker

This will be the first meeting between Spain and Poland at a major tournament. Spain have won eight of their 10 matches against Poland (D1 L1), with the sole Polish victory taking place over 40 years ago (November 1980), in a friendly played in Barcelona (2-1).

Since 2000, Spain have hosted Poland twice, beating them 9-0 on aggregate (3-0 in January 2000, 6-0 in June 2010).

After drawing against Sweden on MD1, Spain could open a EUROs tournament with no wins from their opening two matches for the first time since the 1996 edition. That year they finished second in their group and were eliminated by England in the quarterfinals on penalties.

Poland have won just two of their 12 matches at the European Championships (D6 L4), failing to score more than one goal in any of those 12 encounters (8 goals in total).

In their MD1 draw with Sweden, Spain completed 830 passes and recorded a possession figure of 85.1% – both were tournament highs since Opta have full passing data for the EUROs (1980 onwards).

Following their defeat to Slovakia on MD1, Poland face the possibility of losing their opening two matches at a major tournament (European Championships + World Cup) for a fourth time, having previously done so at the 2002, 2006 and 2018 World Cups, failing to progress beyond the group stages on all three occasions.

Spain have failed to score in two of their last three matches – on MD1 against Sweden and in a pre-tournament friendly against Portugal earlier this month. It’s as many scoreless performances as in their previous 51 internationals, while they haven’t failed to score in consecutive matches since 2013 at the Confederations Cup.

This will be Poland’s eighth major tournament game in Spain, losing just one of the previous seven (W3 D3), all at the 1982 World Cup in which they finished third.

Read Also: Euro 2020: Southgate frustrated by shot-shy England

Álvaro Morata has scored three of Spain’s last four goals at the EUROs, while since the start of the 2016 tournament, he is the highest scoring player for the national team (16 goals in 32 games). However, Morata has failed to score in his last four international matches in all competitions, attempting 12 shots in this time.

Robert Lewandowski has scored with just two of his 35 shots for Poland at major tournaments (12 apps across European Championship + World Cup competitions), failing to score with his last 17 attempts for his national side in such games, since netting against Portugal at EURO 2016.

You might also like

Leave A Reply

Your email address will not be published.