Dugout Discussion – Poland vs Portugal

The Euro 2016 quarter-finals get up and running this evening as Poland take on Portugal in the Stade Velodrome for a place in the last four.

Portugal may be slight favourites for the 8pm encounter but it’s fair to say they’ve yet to hit their stride.

Indeed, Fernando Santos’ side have failed to win any of their first four matches in regular time – after a trio of Group F draws against Iceland, Austria and Hungary, they defeated Croatia in extra-time thanks to Ricardo Quaresma’s late strike.

Poland have also flattered to deceive and scored just three times in four fixtures. Unbeaten in the group stages thanks to narrow 1-0 wins over Northern Ireland and Ukraine and a goalless encounter with Germany, they required penalties to see off Switzerland when their clash finished 1-1 after extra time.

A delve into the data certainly favours the Portuguese. They’ve registered more or less double the number of efforts on target (23 to 12) as their opponents and have conceded far less shots in the box (20 to 33), suggesting they could be on course to clinch a place against Belgium or Wales in the semi-finals.