Poland World Cup 2018 squad and team guide

Robert Lewandowski celebrates
Poland are reliant on Robert Lewandowski's goals Credit: ap

Here we take a look at Poland's World Cup squad and the other things it will be handy to know.

Poland's preliminary World Cup squad - the 35 names

(To be cut to 23 by June 4)

Bartosz Bialkowski, Lukasz Fabianski, Lukasz Skorupski, Wojciech Szczesny; Jan Bednarek, Bartosz Bereszynski, Thiago Cionek, Kamil Glik, Artur Jedrzejczyk, Marcin Kaminski, Tomasz Kedziora, Michal Pazdan, Lukasz Piszczek; Jakub Blaszczykowski, Pawel Dawidowicz, Przemyslaw Frankowski, Jacek Goralski, Maciej Rybus, Sebastian Szymanski, Piotr Zielinski, Szymon Zurkowski; Dawid Kownacki, Robert Lewandowski, Arkadiusz Milik, Krzysztof Piatek, Lukasz Teodorczyk, Kamil Wilczek.

Poland fans in full voice Credit: getty images

What odds are Poland to win the World Cup?

50/1

Who's the coach?

Adam Nawalka. A star of Poland's run to the semi-finals of the 1978 World Cup and as coach he has taken the side into the world's top 10.

Who's the star?

Robert Lewandowski, who before scoring hundreds of goals for Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich was set to join Blackburn until an ash cloud delayed his flight.

Best thing about them

There are likely to be plenty of goals in their matches. In qualifying they averaged nearly three goals a game and conceded more than any other group winner.

Worst thing about them

The goalkeeping equivalent of the Gerrard-Lampard debate as Wojciech Szczesny and Lukasz Fabianski fight for the No 1 shirt.

You may recognise...

A sense of over-reliance on the main striker. Like Harry Kane, Lewandowski failed to score at Euro 2016 and his national side went out in the last eight.

Cameramen will be picking out...

The face of whichever goalkeeper is on the bench as the other makes a horrendous error.

Fans' favourite chant

'Polska, Bialoczerwoni' - which, sung to the tune of 'Go West', means 'Poland, white and red'.

On-field prediction

Should get through the group but not get much further.

Off-field prediction

Huge travelling support means it'll be hard to miss the Poles this summer.