Qatar 2022: How did Poland qualify for the FIFA World Cup?

With Poland’s national squad name by name, they could arguably be one of the dark horses in the upcoming 2022 World Cup in Qatar. As this is their 4th World Cup participation in the last 20 years, Poland will have to take advantage more than ever of having Robert Lewandowski as their main striker.

Especially when in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Polanddisappointed their fans with an early group-stage elimination after having losttwo out of three games with Lewandowski in the middle of his prime performance. However, Poland haven’t qualified for the Round of 16 Stage in a World Cup since the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Also, the Poles are really far from a third-place perfomance like in 1974 or 1982.

In fact, for the second World Cup in a row, Poland come in as one of the two favorite sides to qualified for the Round of 16 stage. The Polesweredrawn along with Argentina, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia in Group C for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. To get there, Poland had to play in the UEFA Qualifiers.

How did Poland qualify for the 2022World Cup in Qatar?

Poland played in Group I of the 2022 World Cup UEFA Qualifiers. This Group I was composed of England, Albania, Hungary, Andorra, and San Marino. Clearly the Poles were favorite to fight for the first place of the group withEngland. However, Poland just picked up 4 points in the first three games, a slow start for them, but the Poles redeemed themselves in the next two games with two massive blow outs.

Two massive wins over Albania and San Marino pushed themselves forward. However, their matchup against England almost left them out of playoff spots, but a last-minute goal scored byDamian Szymański tied up everything. Then, three consecutive wins gave the Poles the neccesary advantage to clinch their place to play a playoff series.

Despite the last matchday’s loss, Polandqualified to the next preliminary round. There, Poland was drawn to play against Russia, but due to the war altercations UEFA suspended them, and Poland played the final round against Sweden. In that one-legged match, Poland beat the Swedish side by a 2-0 score to qualify for their 9th World Cup tournament.

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