Poland and Ukraine meet at Wroclaw Stadium on Sunday in a friendly that lands at a sharp moment for both teams. The match is less than a warm-up in name alone: it is the first real step toward the next UEFA Nations League campaign, which begins in September.
That is why the search interest is there now. Both nations missed the World Cup, and both need a cleaner answer than the one they got in qualifying. Poland go in with Robert Lewandowski still in the squad and expected to start, while Ukraine turn to Andrea Maldera for his first match in charge after Sergei Rebrov’s exit.
For Poland, the game comes after a 3-2 loss to Sweden ended a seven-game unbeaten run and followed a stretch in which they had looked close to steady again. Viktor Gyokeres scored the 88th-minute winner in that defeat, and Poland now have to show that one late setback did not reset all the progress they had made. Lewandowski’s presence carries its own weight after he had hinted at international retirement, but for Sunday he remains the central figure.
Ukraine arrive with a different sort of turnover. Since June 10, they have posted five wins, one draw and three defeats from nine games, with both losses in that sequence coming against France. They beat Iceland and Albania during the run, but the reshuffle around Maldera means the lineup is still taking shape. Five of the players who started the 3-1 loss to Sweden in March are absent, and that opens the door for Mykola Matviyenko to return at centre-back, Valeriy Bondar to shift to right-back, and Mykola Shaparenko and Ruslan Malinovskyi to come back into the side.
Poland also have choices to make. Matty Cash is not in the squad, so Arkadiusz Pyrka could make only his third cap at right wing-back, with Tomasz Kedziora an option in the back three ahead of Przemyslaw Wisniewski. Michal Skoras and Filip Rozga are in contention for recalls, and Karol Czubak may get a first international look after an 18-goal season with Motor Lublin, potentially off the bench in the second half.
The meeting also carries a familiar edge. Poland beat Ukraine 3-1 when the sides last met in June 2024, and that result extended a three-match winning streak that began in 2016. Ukraine have their own selection calls in attack, where Andriy Yarmolenko is chasing a 125th cap and Artem Dovbyk could be chosen over Roman Yaremchuk. Sunday will not settle everything, but it will tell both staffs how much is still missing before September.
