Group E of the Euro 2024 Qualifying campaign continues on Monday evening as Poland are set to host Albania, as both sides are still in search of their first win in the competition.
The home nation currently find themselves in 22nd place in the Fifa Men’s rankings, thanks in part to reaching the round of 16 at the Qatar World Cup. Poland managed to get out of their group at the Qatar world cup despite not putting on very impressive performances, beating Saudi Arabia 1-0 and drawing 0-0 to Mexico.
Poland got their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign off to a disastrous start as they were defeated by the Czech Republic in emphatic fashion. Poland found themselves down by two goals within three minutes and were unable to find a response until the 87th minute when Damian Szymanski scored a consolation goal, with the game ending 3-1 to the Czech Republic.
Albania currently find themselves ranked significantly below Poland in the Fifa Men’s rankings in 66th position. Since reaching a ranking of 38th in 2015, Albania has remained consistently inside the top 70 nations.
The away nation have not been in action in the Euro Qualifying campaign yet due to the odd number of teams in group E. The last time that Albania were in action came in a set of friendlies before the world cup against Italy and Armenia.
Italy proved too tough a task for Albania as they were defeated 3-1, however they managed to defeat Armenia 2-0 thanks to goals from Xhuliano Skuka and Kristjan Asllani.
Albania are currently under the stewardship of Sylvinho, who took the helm at the beginning of this calendar year. Sylvinho may be familiar to English football fans given his spells at Arsenal and Manchester City.
These sides have faced each other 13 times in their history Poland has dominated the majority of meetings. Albania have only won one game, which came in an international friendly in 1953 and Poland have won the past seven games on the bounce.
The last time that these sides met came in the World Cup qualifiers in 2021. Poland dominated 60% of the game's possession and recorded a slender victory thanks to a Karol Swiderski goal, which came in the 77th minute.
Poland are heavily favoured at the bookies ahead of this matchup and are currently priced @ 11/20 to record a victory, whilst an away victory for Albania is currently priced @ 21/4. We are backing Robert Lewandowski to score 2+ because he typically performs well against lower ranked nations.
Lewandowski is by far Poland’s all-time leading goalscorer, having netted 78 times on the international circuit. He also comes into this international break on the back of an impressive run of form that has seen him score 15 goals in 22 appearances so far this season for Barcelona.
These two nations have been drawn in group E of the Euro 2024 qualifiers alongside Moldova, the Faroe Islands and the Czech Republic. Poland are currently priced @ 11/8 to place on top of the group, just below the Czech Republic who are priced @ ⅘.