Poland at the FIFA World Cup

This is a record of Poland's results at the FIFA World Cup. They have qualified for the finals on nine occasions, most recently in 2022. The FIFA World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.

The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently take place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.^[1]

In World Cup history, Poland has participated in nine World Cup editions, started with the 1938 World Cup where they lost to Brazil in a 5–6 thriller.^[2] It took Poland thirty-six years later to qualify for another World Cup, where they began to stun the world from eliminating former world champions England in 1974 qualification, to finishing third twice, in 1974 and 1982 editions.^[3] After participating in 1986, Poland started to decline and lost momentum in global football.

Since the fall of communist rule in Poland at 1989, Poland managed to qualify for 2002, 2006 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, but the team was unable to repeat the feat of the predecessors, went out from the group stage in all three tournaments with two opening losses before gained a consolidating win in the last match.^[4] In 2022, Poland, for the first time since 1986, didn't begin the tournament with a defeat, after holding Mexico goalless, and ultimately went on to advance to the knockout stage for the first time in 36 years.

Year	Result	Position	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA
1930	Did not enter
1934
1938	Round 1	11th	1	0	0	1	5	6
1950	Did not enter
1954
1958	Did not qualify
1962
1966
1970
1974	Third place	3rd	7	6	0	1	16	5
1978	Second group stage	5th	6	3	1	2	6	6
1982	Third place	3rd	7	3	3	1	11	5
1986	Round of 16	14th	4	1	1	2	1	7
1990	Did not qualify
1994
1998
2002	Group stage	25th	3	1	0	2	3	7
2006		21st	3	1	0	2	2	4
2010	Did not qualify
2014
2018	Group stage	25th	3	1	0	2	2	5
2022	Round of 16	15th	4	1	1	2	3	5
2026	To be determined
2030
2034
Total	Third place	9/25	38	17	6	15	49	50

Poland's World Cup record
First Match	Poland 5–6 Brazil  (5 June 1938; Strasbourg, France)
Biggest Win	Poland 7–0 Haiti  (19 June 1974; Munich, West Germany)
Biggest Defeat	Brazil 4–0 Poland  (16 June 1986; Guadalajara, Mexico)  Poland 0–4 Portugal  (10 June 2002; Jeonju, South Korea)
Best Result	Third place in 1974 and 1982
Worst Result	Group stage in 1938, 2002, 2006 and 2018

First round

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Poland	3	3	0	0	12	3	+9	6	Advance to second round
2	Argentina	3	1	1	1	7	5	+2	3
3	Italy	3	1	1	1	5	4	+1	3
4	Haiti	3	0	0	3	2	14	−12	0

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	West Germany	3	3	0	0	7	2	+5	6	Advance to final
2	Poland	3	2	0	1	3	2	+1	4	Advance to third place play-off
3	Sweden	3	1	0	2	4	6	−2	2
4	Yugoslavia	3	0	0	3	2	6	−4	0

Third place playoff

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Poland	3	2	1	0	4	1	+3	5	Advance to second round
2	West Germany	3	1	2	0	6	0	+6	4
3	Tunisia	3	1	1	1	3	2	+1	3
4	Mexico	3	0	0	3	2	12	−10	0

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Argentina	3	2	1	0	8	0	+8	5	Advance to final
2	Brazil	3	2	1	0	6	1	+5	5	Advance to third place play-off
3	Poland	3	1	0	2	2	5	−3	2
4	Peru	3	0	0	3	0	10	−10	0

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Poland	3	1	2	0	5	1	+4	4	Advance to second round
2	Italy	3	0	3	0	2	2	0	3
3	Cameroon	3	0	3	0	1	1	0	3
4	Peru	3	0	2	1	2	6	−4	2

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Poland	2	1	1	0	3	0	+3	3	Advance to knockout stage
2	Soviet Union	2	1	1	0	1	0	+1	3
3	Belgium	2	0	0	2	0	4	−4	0

Group stage

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Morocco	3	1	2	0	3	1	+2	4	Advance to knockout stage
2	England	3	1	1	1	3	1	+2	3
3	Poland	3	1	1	1	1	3	−2	3
4	Portugal	3	1	0	2	2	4	−2	2

Round of 16

Group stage

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	South Korea (H)	3	2	1	0	4	1	+3	7	Advance to knockout stage
2	United States	3	1	1	1	5	6	−1	4
3	Portugal	3	1	0	2	6	4	+2	3
4	Poland	3	1	0	2	3	7	−4	3

Group stage

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Germany (H)	3	3	0	0	8	2	+6	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	Ecuador	3	2	0	1	5	3	+2	6
3	Poland	3	1	0	2	2	4	−2	3
4	Costa Rica	3	0	0	3	3	9	−6	0

Group stage

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Colombia	3	2	0	1	5	2	+3	6	Advance to knockout stage
2	Japan	3	1	1	1	4	4	0	4[a]
3	Senegal	3	1	1	1	4	4	0	4[a]
4	Poland	3	1	0	2	2	5	−3	3

Group stage

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Argentina	3	2	0	1	5	2	+3	6	Advanced to knockout stage
2	Poland	3	1	1	1	2	2	0	4
3	Mexico	3	1	1	1	2	3	−1	4
4	Saudi Arabia	3	1	0	2	3	5	−2	3

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Knockout stage

Round of 16

Władysław Żmuda, who participated in all four World Cups of Poland's Golden Generation, also holds the shared record as player with the most FIFA World Cup matches without ever winning the trophy. He is tied with Paolo Maldini and Uwe Seeler, but is the only one of those three from a country that has never won the World Cup, either.

Rank	Player	Matches	World Cups
1	Władysław Żmuda	21	1974, 1978, 1982 and 1986
2	Grzegorz Lato	20	1974, 1978 and 1982
3	Zbigniew Boniek	16	1978, 1982 and 1986
4	Kazimierz Deyna	13	1974 and 1978
	Henryk Kasperczak	13	1974 and 1978
	Andrzej Szarmach	13	1974, 1978 and 1982
	Antoni Szymanowski	13	1974 and 1978
8	Jerzy Gorgoń	12	1974 and 1978
9	Jan Tomaszewski	11	1974 and 1978
	Stefan Majewski	11	1982 and 1986
	Józef Młynarczyk	11	1982 and 1986

Ernst Wilimowski was the first player ever to score four goals in one match at a FIFA World Cup, and to this day is the only player who managed this feat and still lost the match.

Rank	Player	Goals	World Cups
1	Grzegorz Lato	10	1974 (7), 1978 (2) and 1982 (1)
2	Andrzej Szarmach	7	1974 (5), 1978 (1) and 1982 (1)
3	Zbigniew Boniek	6	1978 (2) and 1982 (4)
4	Ernst Wilimowski	4	1938 (4)
	Kazimierz Deyna	4	1974 (3) and 1978 (1)
5	Włodzimierz Smolarek	2	1982 (1) and 1986 (1)
	Bartosz Bosacki	2	2006 (2)
	Robert Lewandowski	2	2022 (2)

World Cup	Goalscorer(s)
1938	Ernst Wilimowski (4), Fryderyk Scherfke
1974	Grzegorz Lato (7), Andrzej Szarmach (5), Kazimierz Deyna (3), Jerzy Gorgoń
1978	Zbigniew Boniek (2), Grzegorz Lato (2), Kazimierz Deyna, Andrzej Szarmach
1982	Zbigniew Boniek (4), Andrzej Buncol, Włodzimierz Ciołek, Janusz Kupcewicz, Grzegorz Lato, Stefan Majewski, Włodzimierz Smolarek, Andrzej Szarmach
1986	Włodzimierz Smolarek
2002	Paweł Kryszałowicz, Emmanuel Olisadebe, Marcin Żewłakow
2006	Bartosz Bosacki (2)
2018	Grzegorz Krychowiak, Jan Bednarek[5]
2022	Robert Lewandowski (2), Piotr Zieliński

• Poland at the UEFA European Championship

• Official website (in Polish and English)
• FIFA Official Ranking of all Participants at Finals 1930–2002. FIFA Match Results for all Stages 1930–2002
• Poland at the FIFA official site
• Poland – Record International Players; most capped players & top goalscorers at RSSSF.com