FIFA World Cup 2022: How Saudi Arabia’s bold tactics helped them to perform on par with Poland in defeat

Hervé Renard’s Saudi Arabia have been one of the most exciting teams at this year’s FIFA World Cup; the underdogs have punched above their weight and held their own in both group-stage games so far. In their tournament opener, they managed to claim the scalp of Lionel Messi’s Argentina — making progression through the group stage far from a foregone conclusion for La Albiceleste. In their second game, though they ultimately lost to Poland, they delivered a rousing performance from which they arguably deserved more.

Saudi Arabia came into this tournament as the second-lowest ranked side in the competition; They sit in 51st place in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings. However, you would never guess that from their fearless performances so far. Renard has played with a lot of hunger, bravery and tactical intelligence in their opening two games — if they can take the same approach into their third and final group stage fixture versus Mexico, there’s no reason why they can’t get out of this group.

This tactical analysis piece isn’t about that upcoming Mexico game on Wednesday, though. This will be a post-match analysis dissecting the tactics deployed by both Saudi Arabia and Poland in yesterday’s 2-0 win for Biało-czerwoni.

This game threw up a tonne of tactical talking points all of which we could provide a deep dive into. We’re going to hone in on Saudi Arabia’s tactics, in and out of possession, and how the ball-dominant side, who ended the game with 64.9% of the possession, caused Poland so much trouble despite the European side coming away with three points in the end.

Lineups

Firstly, we’ll discuss the lineups used by both teams in this game. Starting with the eventual winners Poland, Czesław Michniewicz set his team up in a 4-4-1-1 shape which saw Wojciech Szczęsny start in goal behind a back four of right-back Matty Cash, right centre-back Kamil Glik, left centre-back Jakub Kiwior and left-back Bartosz Bereszyński.

The first goalscorer, Piotr Zieliński of Serie A side Napoli, started on the right wing with Krystian Bielik and Grzegorz Krychowiak playing centrally, between Zieliński and left-winger Przemysław Frankowski. Up front, Arkadiusz Milik played just off of former Bayern Munich and current Barcelona star Robert Lewandowski, who scored Poland’s second goal of the game.