Our ‘Beloved’ Polish League Starts This Weekend. My Predictions And Ones To Watch.

It’s hard to get excited about the Polish league. First of all, we experienced numerous corruption scandals in the last couple of seasons. A lot of clubs were relegated, other unprepared ones were promoted. The level of the league, as proven by European competition, is also quite low. However, it still remains the only place where you can watch current and future national team players every weekend.

It’s also hard for me to get excited about the Polish league because I don’t support any particular club. Yep, born in Poland but with no club to die for. My first love was Stomil Olsztyn (my grandma’s town); I attended their games as a kid and still remember a lot from 94/95 season (we had Sylwester Czereszewski and Tomasz Sokolowski who made it to the nt fast). Unfortunately, the club went bankrupt and it currently plays in 3rd div as OKS 1945 Olsztyn. As I no longer visit Olsztyn often I was unable to rebuild my love for the club. I’m from Gdansk, but my affection towards Stomil always prevented me from creating an intimate relationship with Lechia Gdansk (I once even attended Lechia-Stomil game supporting the visitors). I currently live in Poznan and watch Lech from time to time, but I’d never call myself a die hard supporter. I also have a soft spot for Zaglebie Lubin as it’s a place where my family comes from (still remember their games against AC Milan an Machaj’s own goal). Now you see why I treat the Polish league only as a place where I can spot nt talent. So let’s analyse it having such perspective in mind.

I like what Alek wrote under my last note, that our league starts to resemble the Scottish one. I agree, we now only have 3 strong, quality clubs. That’s, of course, Wisla Krakow, Legia Warsaw and Lech Poznan. They have the most talented players, both from Poland and abroad, and will fight between themselves for the championship. These are also the most professional clubs and the only ones that can represent us well abroad. Then we’ve got two clubs which can do some damage to the top 3 provided they have a good day: Polonia Warsaw and Gornik Zabrze. The former bought the place in the league from Groclin Grodzisk along with the club’s players. Unfortunately, Polonia’s owners thought it was enough and didn’t strengthen the squad with a single respected player. Gornik, on the other hand, is being steadily built and invested in which should result in them competing for a championship in 2-3 years time.

After that, there are clubs which are really painful to watch. Some gain some interest, but only because they’re from big towns (Slask Wroclaw, Lechia Gdansk, Arka Gdynia, Cracovia Krakow). Others are only supported by the locals (Odra Wodzislaw, Jagiellonia Bialystok, GKS Belchatow, Ruch Chorzow) and other fans don’t give a shit about them (well, maybe I’m too hard about Ruch, which at least has a nice tradition to call upon). Would you watch a Odra-Arka game? Yeah, me neither.

Lastly, there are clubs so poor that they have to rent a pitch to play on (Polonia Bytom, Piast Gliwice) or replace 20 players every half a year (LKS Lodz). Normally, they should be league’s laughing stock, but probably enormous ambition will enable them to compete with others. By enormous ambition I mean playing long, direct balls and hoping to score a goal by accident. Don’t want to watch that.

Here are my standings predictions and players who, some only potentially or in the long run, can be considered good enough for the national team:

1 Wisla Krakow
Ones to watch: Mariusz Pawelek (GK), Arkadiusz Glowacki (D), Marcin Baszczynski (D), Piotr Brozek (D), Wojciech Lobodzinski (M), Marek Zienczuk (M), Rafal Boguski (M/A), Pawel Brozek (A), Andrzej Niedzielan (A, only if he’s healthy)

2 Lech Poznan
Ones to watch: Bartosz Bosacki (D), Marcin Kikut (D), Grzegorz Wojtkowiak (D), Tomasz Bandrowski (M), Rafal Murawski (M), Robert Lewandowski (A)

3 Legia Warsaw
Ones to watch: Jakub Wawrzyniak (D), Jakub Rzezniczak (D), Ariel Borysiuk (M), Maciej Iwanski (M), Piotr Giza (M), Roger Guerreiro (M), Maciej Rybus (M, pictured)

4 Polonia Warsaw
Ones to watch: Sebastian Przyrowski (GK), Tomasz Jodlowiec (D), Radoslaw Majewski (M)

5 Gornik Zabrze
Ones to watch: Adam Danch (D/M), Michal Pazdan (D/M), Tomasz Zahorski (M/A), Przemyslaw Pitry (M/A)

6 GKS Belchatow
Ones to watch: Lukasz Gargula (M), Dawid Nowak (A)

7 Cracovia Krakow
Ones to watch: Piotr Polczak (D), Kamil Witkowski (A), Bartlomiej Dudzic (A)

8 Ruch Chorzow
Ones to watch: hard to find any, Grzegorz Baran (D) was called up last season for an unofficial game vs foreign stars, possibly Piotr Cwielong (A)

9 Slask Wroclaw
Ones to watch: Sebastian Mila (M, pictured), am I joking?

10 Jagiellonia Bialystok
Ones to watch: Krzysztof Krol (D)

11 Arka Gdynia
Ones to watch: Czeslaw Michniewicz (Coach), Tomasz Mazurkiewicz (M) was a talent a long time ago

12 Odra Wodzislaw
Ones to watch: Adam Stachowiak (GK)

13 Lechia Gdansk
Ones to watch: the coaches are saying good things about Hubert Wolakiewicz (D), maybe somebody will pop out in the course of the season

14 LKS Lodz
Ones to watch: none, apparently Rafal Kujawa (A) is the biggest prospect there

15 Polonia Bytom
Ones to watch: anonymous players

16 Piast Gliwice
Ones to watch: anonymous players or average league players

Guys to watch in the lower division: Szymon Pawlowski (M), Grzegorz Bartczak (D), Michal Golinski (M) (Zaglebie Lubin), Marcin Kus (D, provided he stays), Cezary Wilk (M), Marcin Robak(A) (Korona Kielce), Tomasz Lisowski (D), Piotr Kuklis (M) (Widzew Lodz).

Uff, I hope our staff works as hard as I did preparing this preview. According to Rafal Ulatowski they’ll be watching every single league game so as to spot any signs of talent. I don’t envy the guy who’ll have to watch Piast Gliwice-Polonia Bytom in the first round. What are your predictions? Which players do you count on?

Update !!!: The league may no start this weekend. It’s all because of Polish Olympic Committee Tribunal decision to overrule Zaglebie Lubin’s relegation (which was caused by past corruption). Consequently, Arka Gdynia loses its place in the top flight. But, to be honest, we only now that we know nothing. Today Polish FA officials are going to decide if the league starts as previously planned. A brothel is better organised I tell you.