Less than half of the Polish population believe in a victory for the “Red and Whites”, and a majority of Polish fans predict a narrow win by one or two goals against the Faroe Islands – reports the research agency SW Research in one of its latest studies.
This coming Thursday, October 12, the Polish national football team will be playing an away game against the Faroe Islands as part of the Euro 2024 qualifying round. This will be the first test for the new coach – Michał Probierz, who was officially announced as the coach of the Polish national team on September 20. Thursday’s match will be a clash between the last and penultimate (Poland) teams in Group E. Although all previous encounters with this Northern European opponent ended in victory for the “Red and Whites”, a recent, relatively low 2:0 win at PGE Narodowy slightly cooled the expectations of Polish fans. In addition, injured Robert Lewandowski, whose penalty goal led Poland to victory in the first match on September 7, will not be playing. Coach Probierz has also announced several key changes to the line-up, such as omitting Jan Bendarek or betting on Patryk Peda’s debut.
The aura of uncertainty surrounding Thursday’s match may mean that despite crushing stats, only 40% of Poles believe in a victory for Poland on Thursday, and nearly one in five (18%) are convinced of the Islanders’ triumph. A draw is predicted by the fewest people, just 8% of respondents. However, it should be emphasized that optimism about the match result grows with the respondent’s declared interest in football – among people deserving the title of an expert in this field, as many as 60% predict that the Polish team will take home three points. However, predictions are very cautious – the most frequently predicted results are 2:1 for (20% indications) or 2:0 (12% of respondents) for Poland.
But who is the most interested in men’s football in Polish society, and who is the least? Overall, nearly half of respondents (45%) declare a high level of knowledge of topics related to Polish football. Nearly twice as many men (58%) say this about themselves than women (33%). There is also a slight correlation with the age of the respondent – the older the respondent, the less interested in Polish football, with the highest level seen in the 25-34 age group (51%).
In the long run, Polish fans who are familiar with the new coach’s persona do not give him good marks. Every seventh respondent (15%) predicts no success for the new coach, and only 12% of fans estimate that he will achieve success in at least 80% of cases (sum of responses 8-10 on a 0-100 scale). However, it should be noted that optimism increases with the declared level of interest in football.
Methodological note:
The results come from the omnibus study OmniWatch48.pl, conducted on October 3-4, 2023 using the CAWI technique by the research agency SW Research on a representative sample of 1020 Poles aged 16-80.
