Netherlands vs Poland: Euro 2024 Showdown

Poland and Netherlands are to play their first UEFA EURO 2024 match at Volksparkstadion on Sunday 16th June.

This is Poland's fifth successive Euro, but against the Netherlands they always seem to struggle. Poland have lost their last 12 matches against Netherlands. They last defeated Netherlands in May 1979, more than nine years before their 35-year-old talisman Robert Lewandowski was born.

The current Netherlands coach, Ronald Koeman, was part of the Dutch team that won the last Euro that was hosted in Germany in 1988. None of the current Netherlands squad members were born by then.

However, the Netherlands have already suffered a big blow since Teun Koopmeiners and Frenkie de Jong were both withdrawn from the squad.

Michal Probierz, the Poland coach, said the following;

We know how strong the Netherlands are. We have respect for them, but we are not afraid of them. There has been progress in Robert Lewandowski's recovery, so we hope he will come back for the game against Austria. Our tactics? If we go into the game just to survive, it won't work. We have a plan and I hope we will stick to it. We have prepared our players well in terms of analysing our opponents; we have shown them clips from 20 Netherlands games.

Ronald Koeman, the Netherlands coach, also said the following;

Every opponent [in the group] is difficult: maybe not at the same quality level as France, which is the second match, but Poland are a well-organised, strong, defensively solid team. They are physically strong and, of course, always have a number of [talented] players in midfield. So we shouldn't assume we are just going to win the first game. We will have to be very fit and sharp for that.

Poland have been in promising form in their last six matches, they have won four times and drawn twice but it seems the Netherlands are in far better form since they have won five of their last six matches and only lost once.

With both Robert Lewandowski and Juventus striker Arkadiusz Milik out with injuries, Michal Probierz will have to improvise up front.

Without a prolific striker, the Netherlands still have potential scorers all over the pitch, so they should make the most of Poland's attacking woes and take three points from their Euros opener.

Possible line-ups
Poland: Szczesny, Bednarek, Dawidowicz, Kiwior, Frankowski, Slisz, Piotrowski, Moder, Zalewski, Zieliński, Buksa

Netherlands: Verbruggen, Dumfries, De Vrij, Van Dijk, Ake, Reijnders, Schouten, Veerman, Simons, Depay, Gakpo