France - Poland: The king's prestige?

*France - Poland: 10pm today 4/12, on MetaSports.

Both ended the group stage of this year's World Cup with defeat. However, unlike Poland's situation, the 0-1 loss to Tunisia did not affect France's ticket to the next round when coach Didier Deschamps gave many substitutes the opportunity to play. Keeping the strength for pillars like Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann or Olivier Giroud is in the calculation for the 54-year-old coach's long-distance race.

Injury nightmare is a painful problem for France in this tournament. After the case of Karim Benzema, they continued to suffer when right-back Lucas Hernandez suffered a knee injury in the opening match against Australia. Before the Poland match, Deschamps' team received bad news when Theo Hernandez was absent from the training ground due to an ankle problem. Currently, France has lost all personnel for the left-back position. However, they will not have too much of a headache, when they can use midfielder Edouard Camavinga as a temporary solution like the Tunisia match.

Poland is expected to have the strongest squad. But with a gameplay heavily based on Robert Lewandowski, the supercomputer only rated "The Eagles" as 8.1%, while France was at 74.8%. In the group stage, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny reluctantly became the hero of Poland when he saved two consecutive penalties in two matches and achieved a 90% save rate. That proves that coach Czeslaw Michniewicz's defense is problematic, and needs improvement if it wants to create the next miracle in Qatar.

Today's match is only the second time France and Poland have met at the World Cup playground. In the last confrontation in 1982, France received a 2-3 defeat in the third prize match. However, in the last seven encounters, "Les Bleus" keeps an unbeaten record with three wins and four draws. Besides Mbappe, Griezmann is an important link in France's attack front. No French player has created more scoring opportunities than the player wearing the "number 7" shirt with 11 passes that opened up opportunities for his teammates. Griezmann is also the only French player to have at least 10 times placed satellites around in situations leading to goals in both of the last two World Cups.

Despite showing superiority on the offensive front against inferior opponents, coach Deschamps still called on his students to focus. "Poland is a team with many experienced players and has one of the best strikers in the world," he said. "This is an organized team with a lot of physicality, so we can't underestimate them."

In all Poland's group stage matches, the French coaching staff always appoints three analysts. Therefore, Lewandowski and his teammates promise to experience a difficult match, especially when the French defense welcomes the return of Raphael Varane and Dayot Upamecano. In the event that the Polish captain is not effectively supported by satellites, "The Eagles" can hardly make a surprise in front of a squad consisting of key elements of the defending champion.