UEFA Nations League 2026/27: Format, Group and Poland’s Schedule

The Poland national team already knows its group in the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League: the opponents, all the dates and the rules by which teams play for promotion and against relegation. Here we answer questions of fact only. Which league and group is Poland in? Against whom and when? What does the whole format look like, from the league phase to the finals? And what is actually at stake in the table of Group B4? You will find no odds, tips or result forecasts here – every number and date has a stated source. Below, step by step: the format of the Nations League, Poland’s opponents in the group, the dates of the upcoming matches, and what the national team can gain or lose in the table and how this competition connects with qualifying for UEFA EURO 2028.

As of 30 October 2026. Group composition, schedule and league-phase format: based on the official UEFA press kit for the 2026/27 Nations League draw (Brussels, 12 February 2026) and the UEFA.com pages devoted to the Poland national team and to the schedule of the whole edition. Poland has played four of its six group matches (one win, one draw and two defeats, goal record 7:4) and with four points is third in Group B4, behind Sweden (10 points) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (8 points) and ahead of Romania (0 points). The matches against Romania (14 November) and Sweden (17 November) remain to be played.

Format of the 2026/27 UEFA Nations League

The fifth edition of the Nations League includes all 54 football associations that belong to UEFA. They are divided into four leagues – A, B, C and D – ranked by the final ranking of the 2024/25 edition. Leagues A, B and C have 16 national teams each, divided into four groups of four. Each team plays six matches in the group, a home match and an away match against each of the three opponents. League D has six teams in two groups of three, with each team playing four matches.

The group stage is played in two international windows in autumn 2026. Matchdays 1–4 are played in an extended window from 24 September to 6 October, and matchdays 5–6 in the window from 12 to 17 November. This is a change from the previous edition. Instead of three separate windows in September, October and November, the teams play four Nations League matches close together, in September and early October.

Promotion and relegation work on two levels. Directly: the group winners of Leagues B and C are promoted to the higher league, all League D teams are promoted to League C, and the two lowest-ranked fourth-placed teams in League A are relegated to League B. On top of this come promotion and relegation play-offs, played in the same window as the League A quarter-finals (25–30 March 2027): the four runners-up of the League B groups play the two lowest-ranked third-placed teams and the two highest-ranked fourth-placed teams of League A, and the four fourth-placed teams of League B play the four runners-up of the League C groups. Third places in Leagues B and C and fourth places in League C bring neither promotion, nor relegation, nor play-offs.

In the top League A, only the group winners and runners-up compete for a place in the finals tournament. They play a home-and-away tie in the quarter-finals in March 2027, with the group winner always hosting the second leg. The four quarter-final winners advance to the Nations League finals, played as a knockout tournament (semi-finals, third-place match and final) in the window of 9–13 June 2027. The host of the finals tournament and the exact distribution of days within this window have not yet been confirmed by UEFA.

This is a completely different architecture from UEFA’s club competitions. We explain the differences between the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League separately, but the difference is simple: there, clubs play throughout the league-and-cup season, here national teams play in a few short windows spread over two years.

The Nations League was created to reduce the number of pointless friendlies and give national teams competition against opponents of a similar sporting level. Hence the division into four leagues instead of one common pool of 54 teams. Since the first edition in 2018/19 the title has been won in turn by Portugal (2019 and 2025, twice), France (2021) and Spain (2023). All four finals were decided among League A teams, which shows well how big a sporting challenge it is to stay in this division.

Poland’s group

Poland was drawn into Group B4 of League B, the second of the four divisions in the 2026/27 edition. The national team was relegated to League B after finishing fourth and last in Group A1 of League A in the 2024/25 edition (details in the section on changes below). The league-phase draw took place on 12 February 2026 in Brussels, and Poland’s opponents in the group turned out to be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania and Sweden.

The historical statistics show that this is a group without an easy opponent. Sweden has a clear advantage in head-to-head meetings: 17 wins to Poland’s 9 in 30 matches, including the last two: 3:2 in the World Cup play-off final (31 March 2026) and the September 3:1 in the Nations League. Romania, in turn, is the opponent against whom Poland has played the most matches of the three, as many as 37, with draws (15) outnumbering wins (8). Bosnia and Herzegovina was, until 5 October 2026, the only one of the three opponents against whom Poland had never lost in head-to-head meetings; today the record is 4 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat in 7 matches, and the sample is the smallest.

How did the particular four teams in Group B4 come together in the first place? Besides Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina was also relegated to League B after finishing fourth and last in its League A group in the 2024/25 edition. Both national teams therefore came into League B as teams relegated from the top division. Romania and Sweden are in the group from the opposite direction: both won their League C groups in the 2024/25 edition and were promoted to League B. Group B4 thus pairs two teams coming down from League A with two teams coming up from League C. In terms of league pedigree, it is one of the more evenly matched groups in the whole of League B for the 2026/27 edition.

Poland’s schedule

All six Group B4 matches fall in two international windows: from 24 September to 6 October (matchdays 1–4) and from 12 to 17 November 2026 (matchdays 5–6). As of 30 October 2026, four matchdays have been played: Poland drew 0:0 with Bosnia and Herzegovina (25 September), lost 1:3 to Sweden (28 September), beat Romania 6:0 (2 October) and lost 0:1 to Bosnia and Herzegovina (5 October).

Poland starts and ends the group stage with home matches: against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 25 September and against Sweden on 17 November. Of the three away matches, two, to Sweden and to Bosnia and Herzegovina, have already been played, at the end of September and at the start of October, and the third, to Romania, falls on 14 November.

What Poland is playing for

The sporting stakes in Group B4 run in two directions. The group winner is promoted directly to League A for the 2028/29 edition, that is, to the company of the strongest national teams on the continent, from which Poland was relegated after the 2024/25 edition. Fourth, last place in the group, in turn, means taking part in a March play-off to stay in the league against one of the four runners-up of the League C groups: the loser of that pair is relegated to League C. Second place leads to a March play-off for promotion to League A against one of the League A teams (third or fourth in their group), and the winner of that pair plays in League A. Third place brings neither promotion, nor relegation, nor play-offs: the national team stays in League B.

The 2026/27 Nations League also matters beyond the group table itself. In May 2025 UEFA approved the qualification system for UEFA EURO 2028 (United Kingdom and Ireland), under which some of the places in the play-offs for the finals tournament will go to the best-ranked group winners of the 2026/27 Nations League who do not qualify directly through the standard qualifiers. This is a confirmed mechanism: UEFA describes it explicitly in its announcement approving the qualification system. The Nations League’s own draw materials from February 2026 describe the link somewhat more cautiously, as something that is “expected”, which suggests that some details may not yet have been finalised at that time. For Poland this means that a good result in Group B4 may, conditionally, depending on how the other Nations League groups turn out, open an additional route to the finals tournament, regardless of how the classic qualifiers for EURO 2028 go.

As for the money, the situation differs from UEFA’s club competitions, where the payout amounts for teams are published every year in a separate circular (we write about this in more detail in the article on money in the European cups, including how much Polish clubs playing in the European cups in the same season (in Polish) can earn). UEFA has not yet published, or at least we have not found, a document that gives specific payout amounts for national associations for taking part and for results in the 2026/27 Nations League. Various mutually contradictory estimates of prizes for participation and for reaching the finals circulate in the sports media, but we do not present any of them here as an official UEFA rate. Until we find a source document with a number and a date, we do not give a specific amount. What is certain, however, is that the mechanism is analogous to the club competitions: a higher place in the group and further participation in the knockout stage (quarter-final, semi-final, final) come with a higher bonus, although the financial scale of the Nations League, a competition for national teams rather than clubs, is by nature different from that of the Champions League. Until UEFA publishes its own circular with specific amounts for this edition, any figure given on the internet should be treated as unofficial.

What has changed compared with 2024/25

Promotion and relegation in the Nations League work in a two-year cycle, so the biggest change for Poland is the relegation itself from League A to League B. In the 2024/25 edition the national team finished fourth and last in Group A1, which, according to the rules of that edition, meant direct relegation. This is Poland’s first relegation from League A since the competition began in 2018/19: in the three earlier editions (2018/19, 2020/21, 2022/23) the national team finished the group stage in third place, each time keeping its place in the elite league.

The composition of the group is also different from the 2024/25 edition. The new line-up results from the league-phase draw of 12 February 2026, based on the final ranking of the previous edition. In addition, the 2026/27 edition introduces a slightly different group-stage calendar: instead of three separate international windows in September, October and November, the first four matchdays have been condensed into one extended window at the turn of September and October, and only the last two matchdays are played in November. For the coaching staff this means different workload planning than in previous editions: more national-team matches in a shorter time in the autumn, and a longer break before the November window.

FAQ

Sources

• UEFA, 2026/27 UEFA Nations League Draw Press Kit, Brussels, 12 February 2026 (competition format, league-phase and quarter-final schedule, finals dates, pots and league pools).
• UEFA.com, page of Poland national team matches in the 2026/27 Nations League (Poland’s full schedule with dates and venues).
• UEFA.com, “2026/27 UEFA Nations League: All the league phase fixtures” (matchdays and dates of the whole league phase, including Group B4).
• UEFA.com, “2026/27 UEFA Nations League league phase draw” (group composition after the draw of 12 February 2026).
• UEFA.com, “Qualification system for UEFA EURO 2028 approved”, 21 May 2025 (link between the 2026/27 Nations League and the EURO 2028 play-offs).
• pl.wikipedia.org, “Lista meczów reprezentacji Polski w piłce nożnej mężczyzn (1921–2000)” and “Lista meczów reprezentacji Polski w piłce nożnej mężczyzn (od 2001)” (lists of matches of the Poland men’s national football team), as of 30 October 2026 (head-to-head records, wins-draws-losses: Romania 37 matches, 8-15-14; Sweden 30 matches, 9-4-17; Bosnia and Herzegovina 7 matches, 4-2-1; the figures for Sweden and for Bosnia and Herzegovina were additionally verified on 11v11.com).

See also: Nations League: Poland’s results and the group table after 2 matchdays (in Polish).

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