The Polish national team took part in the World Cup finals 7 times. The first time was in France in 1938, when the team played only one game (Brazil - Poland 6:5) and didn't make it past the first round. The Poles had to wait until 1974 for their next chance. On their way to the cup the "whites & reds" eliminated England and Wales, during the West Germany tournament they won 6 out of 7 games and ended up in 3. place. This was a time of success in Polish football. The Polish national team played in 3 consecutive competitions and occupied 5th, 3rd and 14th place. After the "years of plenty" came a time of misfortune, that brought years of crisis in football. The Poles changed things during the qualifiers for Korea & Japan (they qualified as the first team from the European zone). The 2002 World Cup was the sixth tournament starring the Polish team and the 2006 World Cup - the seventh.

During the World Cup qualifiers Poland has not qualified 7 times (in the years 1958-1970 and 1990-1998), and the team hasn't entered the competition twice. The eleven didn't play in the first championship in 1930 for financial reasons and didn't enter the qualifiers in 1950 because of damage caused by the war. Also the team had to withdraw from the qualifiers twice. Pressures from shame-fearing Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, the team lost games by default with Czechoslovakia (1934) and Hungary (1954).