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There's not much to say about Poland - they're coming without 10 players, all game seeds who got them wins in the last years - the goalies Szmal and Wyszomirski (also Wichary), the pivots Syprzak and B. Jurecki, the backs M. Jurecki, Bielecki and Lijewski, the defensive specialist Kus, the substitute right back Szyba... now they have the goalies who are unknown, decent wings, the Gebala brothers, Jurkiewicz and Dujsebajev at the bench. They're a second European league, realistically.
The Spanish got the backbone today, but are missing Vargas. Corrales is a good goalie, though, and he knows the Polish. Even the good Polish team didn't get a road win in the last two years (eight matches), they've lost to the Romanians (-5), Dutch, twice to the Spaniards, 28-33 (16-17) two years ago and 12-26 (7-14) last year. The Spaniards beat them in Poland with a mixed team last year.
On the other hand, the Spaniards are killing it at home - they crushed the Brazilians 37-30 (20-13), Swedes 32-22 (17-7). They played with BiH 30-21 (12-6), 39-16 against Finland (21-9), and only Germany got out of a handicap, 26-20 (11-8), but they're the European champion.
No doubt, the Spaniards take games like these seriously. When they faced the better Polish team, they were up by seven after the first half and beat them by 14 in the end, and I don't doubt that a team without 10 of their best players will lose by at least five after the first half. This Polish team is weaker even than the Bosnian who were losing by 6 after the first half. I expect them to suffer for every goal, and the Spaniards to have a huge advantage after the first half. Details

The Slovaks have a similar lineup to the last year's, with most of the key players. They easily dealt with Ukraine then (19-12 first half) and Finland (13-9), but they got stuck against Croatia. Now they'll try to get through at home, and the key game will be against Slovenia, but they first have to deal with the two weaker rivals. I expected them to be motivated, start forcefully and spare energy for the important games later on. They've definitely got the quality.
Kosovo left a humble impression in April, easily losing all three games. It was 15-7 in the first game against Lithuania, after the first half, then 15-5 against Germany, and they were a bit evened out to Russia (9-12), but the Russians weren't that motivated because they secured going through.
Besides, they played European Open, with all the game seeds they've got now, and lost all seven games. With the first halves being: 10-13 against Romania, 6-19 Sweden, 8-9 Estonia (each 25 minutes), 10-17 Czech, 15-15 Finland (-9 in the end), 7-18 Austria, 17-14 Georgia. Estonia and Georgia are weaker teams, the Slovaks beat the Finns easily last yaer. Whenever the opponents took them seriously, Kosovo were lost. I think Slovakia will lead by at least five after the first half here. Details

Everything is pretty clear here. The Macedonians need 19 points of difference to make it to the World Championship, anything below that will lead Portugal on. The Netherlands beat Turkey with 11 points of difference, Austria with 12; when Turkey were stronger and more complete; then Portugal with 13, Poland with 10 and a modest game, and those are all teams like Macedonia which needed no point difference. Here we have full motive, Turkey are very modest for whom this will be the third match in three days, which is also important. We have a difference in quality, a strong motive, and there should be no dilemma. Details

Poland are almost definitely out. Even if they win today, Macedonia are not expected to lose to feeble Turkey in the last game. On the other hand, Portugal have 3 points, as many as Macedonia and will look for a win here. They will want it to be as convincing as possible since the goal difference will in that case be crucial. Their goal difference is by 5 goals better than Macedonia's at the moment but they also have a much tougher game coming up and need to go full throttle.

We pointed out that they are a team which limited the top teams to 25 or less goals. Macedonia scored just 21 with Taleski and Neloski. Poland are pretty modest in offense as they do not have a player capable of going on a scoring run. I expect them to have a lot of offensive-end problems today. They scored 22 (8 in the first half) in the first Macedonia game, which fell apart and 31 against Turkey yesterday (just 12 in the first half), after which their rivals lost power.

They scored 24 against faster-paced Iceland (Iceland needed good goal difference), 21 against Switzerland, 20 against France, 14 against Spain at EC. They went over that in Serbia game, but the Serbians played rather bad defense throughout the tournament and later on against Noway and Iceland. Looking at their major competition games with tougher rivals, they have 23 against Sweden and 19 against Germany at WC, 23 and 23 against Germany and 24 against Switzerland home at EC. Details