Kuszczak hopeful of Polish progress

“The strength of the team is that is has a lot of experience in it, particularly down the middle of the team, and we’re going to look to build around that spine of top players, which will mean Szczesny in goal, Kamil Glik – who played a lot for Monaco – in the centre of defence, then Zielinski in the middle of the park and Lewandowski upfront. They’ve got good players around them and this team definitely has the potential to compete.

“Everybody was very excited to see how the Mexico game would go, now everything is in the balance. Of course, Argentina are very strong. They have top players and in my opinion they are one of the best national teams in the world, so our third group game will be very tough, but having done the job against Saudi Arabia, there is a good chance that we can set out what we are aiming to do and go to the next stage.”

The permutations In Group C mean that no-one is guaranteed qualification to the knockout stages yet. Poland only need a draw in their final game, while Lisandro Martinez’s Argentina will go through if they beat the Poles. Saudi Arabia are guaranteed a place in the knockout stages if they beat Mexico, and if both games are drawn, Argentina and Poland will progress.

For Mexico, they need to beat the Saudis and hope Poland beat Argentina.