Poland vs New Zealand preview: what to expect from tonight’s friendly

Image via @LaczyNasPilka on Twitter

In their first match of the October international break, Poland take on New Zealand in a friendly at Stadion Śląski. 

Initially, it may well seem that the stakes are low for this game, and in many ways there is a level of accuracy to this statement. However, there could be a few interesting sub-plots.

Firstly, there will be an appetite for Piotr Zieliński to get minutes here seeing as he isn’t on the pitch for Inter Milan of late. Given his importance to the national team, it is crucial that he finds himself match fit and up to speed.

On the other side of the coin, it would be nice to see Jakub Kamiński carry on his strong club form, likewise Michał Skóraś who earned himself a call-up for this camp.

Speaking personally, I’d like to see Kacper Kozłowski get some minutes for the senior side for the first time in four years and a debut from Jan Ziółkowski, but beyond that I doubt we will see much in the way of fresher faces.

As of this morning, there are reports circulating which have a few concrete names included in tonight’s starting team for Poland, the rest of which is my predictions:

This is an obviously heavily rotated team, but given the match will be a friendly I think this is likely. A combination of getting Zieliński up to speed and also ensuring others will be ready were they to come off the bench on Sunday.

There has been talk by Jan Urban of trying out a different formation and he hasn’t ruled it out for this game, by I personally doubt he would change something that was getting results last time out.

Due to a previous engagement I won’t be live-tweeting along with this match as usual, but rest assured I’ll be watching it back in full and there will be an article expanding on the game and what it might mean for Sunday night when Poland travel to Lithuania.

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