This is Poland’s first meeting with Saudi Arabia since March 2006 in a friendly, with Poland winning 2-1 thanks to a brace from Lukasz Sosin.
This is just Poland’s third Fifa World Cup game against an Asian nation, losing 2-0 to Korea Republic in 2002, and beating Japan 1-0 in 2018.
Saudi Arabia have lost nine of their 10 Fifa World Cup games against European nations, with the exception being a 1-0 win over Belgium in 1994. They’ve lost each of their last eight such games, while failing to score a single goal in any of the last seven.
Poland have kept a clean sheet in both of their last two World Cup games; only from 1974 to 1978 have they recorded three straight shutouts at the finals (run of three).
Saudi Arabia have won their last two World Cup games, beating Egypt in their final game of the 2018 tournament, and Argentina on MD1 this year. They'd only won two of their first 15 games in the competition (D2 L11), with those wins also coming consecutively in the 1994 group stage.
17 per cent of Poland’s games at the World Cup have finished goalless (6/35), the highest per centage of any team to play at least 15 games at the tournament. They last played out consecutive draws in the finals in 1982 against Italy and Cameroon – which were both goalless.
Saudi Arabia scored with both of their shots on target against Argentina on MD1 – they've netted at least twice in consecutive games for the first time ever in the World Cup but have never scored three goals in a single game in the competition.
Poland attempted six shots against Mexico on MD1, their lowest tally in a single World Cup match since Opta have this data (from 1966), with their previous low being eight shots against Germany in 2006.
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Poland’s Robert Lewandowski remains without a goal in four World Cup appearances, attempting 11 shots in this time while also missing a penalty against Mexico last time out. In major tournaments overall (World Cup/EUROs), Lewandowski’s next match will be his 16th for Poland, which would be behind only Wladislaw Zmuda (21) and Grzegorz Lato (20) for the nation.
Against Argentina last time out, Salem Al Dawsari became just the second Saudi Arabia player to score in more than one edition of the World Cup, along with Sami Al Jaber (3). Another goal for Al Dawsari would see him become the country's joint top goal scorer at the World Cup, level with Al Jaber (3).