Lewandowski, Mane face off

Volgograd-Robert Lewandowski and Sadio Mane face off in a mouthwatering World Cup shootout between two of European football’s most lethal forwards on Tuesday as Poland take on Senegal. Bayern Munich’s Lewandowski finished the season as the Bundesliga’s top scorer for the third time with 29 goals, netting 41 times in all competitions.

Mane scored 10 Champions League goals including one in the final in Kiev forming a devastating strike force at Liverpool alongside Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino of Brazil.

“I believe Sadio can be one of the stars of the tournament,” said former Senegal player El Hadji Diouf, who played in Japan and South Korea in 2002, the only previous time the country has reached the World Cup. Poland go into the Group H match at Moscow’s Spartak Stadium as favourites and are expected to emerge from a section also featuring Colombia and Japan. Ranked eighth in the world, it is Poland’s eighth appearance at the World Cup, with coach Adam Nawalka’s side desperate to improve on the third-place finishes in 1974 and 1982.

Lewandowski admits he has a point to prove after a disappointing Euro 2016, when he scored only once as Poland exited at the quarter-finals stage.

Lewandowski said he was entering the tournament in a different frame of mind from 2016.

Adventure
Poland received a boost in the lead-up to the tournament when defender Kamil Glik was cleared to play after an unexpectedly quick recovery from a shoulder injury.