Euro 2016 Championships
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2016
Kickoff: 20:00 BST
Venue: Stade Velodrome in Marseille
Live Stream: Watch Euro 2016 Live Online
All eyes will be on two great forwards of the modern era – Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski – when Poland meet Portugal on Thursday at Stade Velodrome.
Ronaldo has enjoyed yet another brilliant season for Real Madrid in 2015/16 where he scored 53 goals in all competitions for his club, laying off further 16 for others and ended the campaign winning the Champions League as well.
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Lewandowski too has had a prolific season under his belt. The 27-year-old striker has scored 42 goals in all competitions for Bayern Munich and picked up the Bundesliga title.
The weight of expectations is high on both of them. Portugal have some exciting players on their ranks like Andre Gomes, William Ricardo Carvalho, Nani and Joao Mario to name a few, but Ronaldo is the heartbeat of this team. If he fires, Portugal can always hope. So far, he hasn’t been at his best. However, the former Manchester United superstar has hinted of returning to form after scoring twice against Hungary and laying off the crucial goal for Ricardo Quaresma in the round of 16 against Croatia. Ronaldo is 3/1 with Ladbrokes to score the opening goal of the match.
Lewandowski, on the other hand, has yet to find his goalscoring form in Euro 2016. Poland have played some attractive football over the course of the tournament but they need their talisman to fire. We all know, Lewandowski is a class player and he just needs one goal to regain his confidence back. He is 5/1 with Ladbrokes to score the opening goal of the game.
Poland coach, Adam Nawalka, however, is not concerned with Lewandowski’s form. He said to the reporters:
“He’s doing a great job for our side. We are a team that understands each other very well and knows that what’s good for the team is the most important thing.”
While Portugal are choc-a-bloc with attacking talents, Poland are defensively very solid having conceded just one goal (excluding the penalties) throughout the tournament. However, Poland can be put under pressure, as we have seen in the last match where Switzerland dominated the second half and nearly won the game, but the Polish players held their nerves to win 5-4 on penalties.
Possible Portugal starting line-up: Rui Patricio, Soares, Pepe, Fonte, Guerreiro, Joao Mario, Adrien Silva, Carvalho, Renato Sanches, Nani, Ronaldo.
Possible Poland starting line-up: Fabianski, Piszczek, Glik, Pazdan, Jedrzejczyk, Blaszczykowski, Krychowiak, Maczynski, Grosicki, Milik, Lewandowski.
Prediction: Poland 1-2 Portugal
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