Image via @ATLUTD on Twitter
The past week has since a whole slew of rumoured transfers finally come to fruition, and a few more added to the “solid rumour” pile. What better Friday night reading than a rundown of the most intriguing of these moves for Polish players who will be ploughing furrows at their new clubs?
Starting with one that has been rumoured for some time, Bartosz Slisz finally got his move from Legia Warszawa to Atlanta United in the MLS. We’ve seen that for talented Ekstraklasa players, the MLS can be a stepping stone to a top European league, Przemysław Frankowski being the obvious example. Slisz was a player who has had a really good 2023 and it doesn’t surprise me that both player and club felt now was a good time to cash in. A couple of seasons in the MLS at one of the biggest franchises in the league will do Slisz and his stock in the game some good, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he moves to a Top 5 league in the coming years in a manner similar to Frankowski.
Two loans were also confirmed within the same 24 hour window of Slisz’s move to Atlanta. Maxi Oyedele will be seeing out the rest of the season in League 2 with Forest Green Rovers on loan from Manchester United, which is likely to be further beneficial for the development of the U-21 international, and Filip Jagiełło has also moved on loan from Genoa to Spezia in Serie B. Interestingly, in a week where Szymon Żurkowski has moved from Spezia to Empoli and Bartłomiej Drągowski is very close to a move to Panathinaikos from Spezia, Jagiełło has ended up moving across Liguria.
I’ve written a lot about Spezia on this website given their Polish connections, and there will be a bigger breakdown in an article coming soon, but it does seem like their terrible season so far back in Serie B is causing an exodus of the higher profile Polish players there.
Speaking of Serie B, Marcin Listkowski has also moved on loan from Lecce to Lecco, in a fantastic transfer for dyslexics. Listkowski has never really had a chance in Serie A since Lecce have been promoted, but he’s proven to be a perfectly adequate Serie B player with Lecce and Brescia, where he was on loan for the second half of last season.
Moving onto what I think is the most interesting rumour, Adrian Benedyczak is reportedly the subject of increased monitoring from Napoli, Roma and Lazio. Even though he is only starting on the bench for tonight’s game away at Sampdoria, I think it’s unlikely Parma let him go in January, despite his rate of goalscoring slowing down recently. Given Parma are on course to gain automatic promotion from Serie B and maybe even win the league, I think if a deal is agreed with a top Serie A club for Benedyczak he will either be loaned back to Parma for the rest of the season, or the deal will be structured in a way where he remains at Parma until the end of this season.
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