This will be the second meeting between France and Poland at the World Cup, with their previous one coming in the third-place play-off match in the 1982 tournament – a 3-2 win for Poland.
France are unbeaten in their last seven meetings with Poland across all competitions (W3 D4), with their last defeat against them being in a friendly in August 1982 (0-4). Les Bleus have kept a clean sheet in each of the last three in this run, all of which have been since the turn of the millennium.
France have become the first reigning World Cup champion to reach the knockout stages since Brazil in 2006. The last reigning champion to go out at the Round of 16 stage were Italy in 1986, who lost 2-0 to France.
This will be Poland’s first match in the knockout stages of a World Cup tournament since 1986, when they lost 0-4 to Brazil in the round of 16. Their last win at the World Cup outside of the group stage did come against France, however, in their 3-2 win in the third-place play-off in 1982.
Since the Round of 16 was introduced in the 1986 World Cup, France have appeared at this stage on five occasions and progressed from all five ties (1986, 1998, 2006, 2014, 2018). The only other nations to appear at this stage more than once and progress each time are Germany (8/8) and Croatia (2/2).
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This will be the third time that Poland have faced the reigning champions in a World Cup tournament, while they have avoided defeat in each of the previous two – 1-0 v Brazil in 1974 and 0-0 v Germany in 1978. For France, meanwhile, this will be their first knockout stage game at the World Cup as reigning champions.
Poland have only recorded five shots on target in their three games at the 2022 World Cup, with 60 per cent of those coming in their game against Saudi Arabia on MD2 (3/5). Striker Robert Lewandowski has registered more of these shots on target (3) than the rest of the Poland team combined (2).
Antoine Griezmann has created more chances than any other France player at the 2022 World Cup (11). Indeed, the only player to create 10+ in either of the last two World Cup tournaments for France has been Griezmann, while he’s already surpassed his total from 2018 when they lifted the trophy (10).
Kylian Mbappé has had nine more shots (16) and five more shots on target (7) than any France player in the 2022 World Cup. Only Just Fontaine (13) has more World Cup goals for France than Mbappé (7), who scored twice in the Round of 16 in 2018 against Argentina.
Wojciech Szczesny has a 90 per cent save per centage at the 2022 World Cup, and had saved each of his first 16 shots on target faced in the tournament prior to Alexis Mac Allister’s goal for Argentina. Szczesny has saved a penalty in each of his last two games at the World Cup, while no goalkeeper on record has ever stopped three penalties in a single edition of the tournament (since 1966, excluding shootouts).