Euro 2016: Poland vs Portugal preview

The first of the Euro 2016 quarter-finals will be played on Thursday, when Poland will take on Portugal in Marseille for a place in the last four. This is the first time Poland manage to reach this stage of an European Championship and their first presence in the last eight at a major tournament since the 1982 World Cup. The two teams have last met in the qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 and both matches ended in draws: 2-2 in Portugal and 0-0 in Poland. Portugal have reached the final at Euro 2004 on home soil but surprisingly lost to Greece. Poland have done well so far and their presence at this stage of the competition is remarkable considering that their star striker, Robert Lewandowski, has not managed to score a single goal at the tournament. In fact, Lewandowski has not scored for Poland since November 2015, if he manages to find his scoring boots now then Poland could really pull off something big here. Teenager Bartosz Kapustka will be available again after having served his suspension but Wojciech Szczesny remains injured. His replacement, Lukasz Fabianski, has played very well though, so he might keep his place even if Szczesny recovers. Portugal have not won any of their four matches so far, but they have not lost any either. They finished the group stage with three draws, then squeezed past Croatia thanks to an extra time goal from Ricardo Quaresma. They have reached the semi finals of the European Championships in four of the last six editions though, so they have experience on their side. Head coach Fernando Santos does not have any injuries or suspensions to worry about, but he does have some decisions to make regarding his starting eleven as some of the first-choice players have been disappointing so far. Probable line-ups: Poland: Fabianski - Piszczek, Glik, Pazdan, Jedrzejczyk - Blaszczykowski, Krychowiak, Maczynski, Kapustka - Lewandowski, Milik Portugal: Patricio - Soares, R. Carvalho, Pepe, Guerreiro - Mario, W. Carvalho, Silva, Gomes - Ronaldo, Nani My prediction: 1-1 after 90 minutes. Here are the odds for the match at Bet365: Poland win - 4.00 Draw - 3.00 Portugal win - 2.25