Images via @LechiaGdanskSA, @GazinatepFK, @LaczyNasPilka and @Jagiellonia1920 on Twitter
A lot to talk about as we slide from the weekend into midweek, which means league fixtures are swapped out for European qualification, and the discussion turns more to individual players rather than Polish clubs. Rest assured however that there will be my thoughts and views around how Jagiellonia Białystok got on and indeed how I think Śląsk Wrocław, Wisła Kraków and Legia Warszawa will do in their games this midweek.
For those who thought it might’ve been a slow start to the Ekstraklasa, we were only proved half-right. A slow start for the first hour or more in Białystok on Friday night before Jagiellonia triumphed with two late goals, although the real treat of the Ekstraklasa’s opening night came in the early knockings of Śląsk’s game against Lechia Gdańsk, as Tomasz Neugebauer scored from the halfway line for the recently promoted visitors. A superb goal, and one we see more and more in football these days it seems, but nonetheless it is a type of goal that excites and one that left the home side needing an equaliser until they eventually snatched one in stoppage time.
The aforementioned goal of the season contenders were plural and the next one arrived the very next day. Mateusz Marzec scoring with a sumptuous strike, lashing a bouncing ball from outside the area into the top corner for another newly promoted side, GKS Katowice. It wasn’t enough as they fell to Radomiak Radom 2-1, but it should certainly be up there at season’s end for one of the most sweetly struck shots.
Taking a slightly more philosophical approach as I tackle the next topic that struck me over the weekend, and it was all resulting from something hinted at in the last article. Kacper Kozłowski’s move to Gaziantep in Turkey will see him play a lot of football, which can only be a good thing, but it does still feel like someone with his talent could and should be playing at a higher level. Again, I don’t wish to denigrate the Turkish Süper Lig as it is a good standard of football and I do enjoy it whenever I watch it, but you do feel that beyond the top teams you have to be having a really great season for people to sit up and take notice, much like fellow Polish players Adam Buksa and Jakub Kałuziński did for Antalyaspor last year.
Kozłowski’s career sadly looks like it is sliding into that of all the players given the “next big thing in Polish football” tag that has come about since Robert Lewandowski became an international superstar, given that pundits and journalists are always keen to label young players as soon as possible. Off the top of my head we’ve had Bartosz Kapustka, Dawid Kownacki and Kozłowski all given this tag, and all three are not having Lewandowski-esque careers. Kapustka was bought by then-Premier League champions Leicester City after standing out at Euro 2016, before he was farmed out on loan for several years at a variety of levels and wound up back in the Ekstraklasa with Legia, all while battling serious injuries which he is still suffering the effects of. Kownacki has spoken of the burden he felt when that “next Lewandowski” tag was placed on him and that it took a few years to shake that feeling. I myself have been guilty of building up hopes for Kozłowski’s career with some of my opinions I’ve espoused here, although it does feel like with the exception of injuries Kozłowski and Kapustka’s stories bear striking similarities so far: both bought for reasonably sizeable fees out of the Ekstraklasa by Premier League clubs, then placed out on loan before leaving a few years later without getting a real chance. In truth, Kozłowski has had even less of a chance at Brighton than Kapustka did at Leicester.
One of the reasons I was thinking about this “next big thing” tag was reading quotes from Euro 2024’s breakout star for Poland, Kacper Urbański. In a recent interview Urbański said he wanted to win the Champions League, the Ballon d’Or and the World Cup over the course of his career. He accepted these were very lofty ambitions, but that they should be chased nonetheless. After seeing these quotes I expected certain pundits to take a very critical approach, I was pleasantly surprised to see the opposite occurred. Another reason to feel maybe a little calmer at this point about Urbański’s career than the other players mentioned in the last paragraph is that no-one is placing massive expectations on him or labelling him in that aforementioned way.
Onto yesterday’s Champions League qualifying, with Jagiellonia travelling to Panevezys in Lithuania, and barring a second leg calamity it looks as though the Polish champions will proceed to the next round of qualifying. A mighty 4-0 win with striker Jesus Imaz scoring a hat-trick in the first half an hour, the pick of the bunch being the half-volley he scored to make it 2-0. It was a game Jagiellonia completely dominated, and hopefully the second leg will go the same way.
It was a similar story as Adam Buksa took to Champions League qualifying with his new club Midtjylland, the Danish side running out 3-0 winners against their Andorran opponents Santa Coloma. A far closer contest was that of Sebastian Szymański’s Fenerbahce and Kacper Przybyłko’s Lugano. The game in Switzerland was much more entertaining than many (read:me) expected, with a 3-4 scoreline setting the tie up nicely for the second leg in Istanbul.
As for how Śląsk, Wisła and Legia will do in their games, I’m actually cautiously optimistic. In recent years we’ve tended to see one of the Polish teams drop out early in these qualifiers and the others go all the way to the competitions proper or at least a fair ways into their qualifying. I think Śląsk and Legia have to be considered favourites in their ties, but Wisła will be right up against it. I’d be shocked if they make it through another round, but even if the likelihood of losing to Rapid Wien comes to pass, Wisła would still drop into Conference League qualifying, which could be something that suits them better.
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