Polish World Cup Blog Awards: Results. Plus The Newest Transfer Rumours.

The results are in, the First Annual Polish World Cup Blog Awards have come to a close. You voted Jakub Blaszczykowski the best Polish player in 2008, Robert Lewandowski the best newcomer and Euzebiusz Smolarek the biggest disappointment. No major surprises, the results show that PWCB readers know their Polish football. Thanks everyone for participation and I hope that next year we’ll be spoiled for choice as far as the player of the year award is concerned.

The player of the year:

1st Jakub Blaszczykowski
2nd Artur Boruc
3rd Pawel Brozek
4th Rafal Murawski
5th Artur Wichniarek

I expected this category to be a closely fought battle between Blaszczu and Artur Boruc. However, some of the readers seem to have lost the faith in Artie after his poor performances in the second part of the year. Blaszczykowski didn’t win any trophies last year and didn’t even take part in Euro 2008, but he symbolizes the Polish fans’ hopes to finally have a good outfield player in a top European club. There already are rumours about Kuba’s move to Liverpool; if he maintains his current form he’ll move to a higher level club sooner or later. Brozek and Murawski’s positions show that you don’t respect the Ekstraklasa that much, whereas Wichniarek is an example that one have to play in the national team to be in contention when the awards time comes.

The newcomer of the year:

1st Robert Lewandowski
2nd Rafal Boguski
3rd Tomasz Bandrowski
4th Radoslaw Majewski
Piotr Polczak

As expected, there was no contention in this category, Robert Lewandowski was the only new player to grab your attention in 2008. First of all, Lewandowski is a striker, so his achievements can be noticed even by fans who don’t have the opportunity to watch whole games on regular basis. Moreover, Lewy proved his worth in every competition he took part in, the Ekstraklasa, Uefa Cup and the national team included. The fact that some of his goals were of extraordinary beauty (his debut goal against GKS Belchatow or the one against Ireland) also helped you to make your choice. Finally, there was no other player that came out of the blue the way Lewy did; both Rafal Boguski and Radoslaw Majewski were already under fans’ radar in 2007, whereas Piotr Polczak and Tomasz Bandrowski’s performances were not spectacular enough to be stored in fans’ memory.

The disappointment of the year:

1st Ebi Smolarek
2nd Radoslaw Matusiak
3rd Maciej Zurawski
4th Wojciech Lobodzinski
5th Jacek Krzynowek

To be honest, I didn’t expect Ebi to be such a clear winner here. This just shows how much faith was put in him before the Euros and how much he let everybody down during the tournament. The way his club career turned out also didn’t help him to win back the fans’ trust and respect. Things can only get better for Ebi (and they already did, scroll down to see his first goal for Bolton) in 2009. Both Maciej Zurawski and Radoslaw Matusiak deservedly earned their votes. Magic paid the price for being a big tournament failure for the third time in a row, whereas Radomatu’s downfall was the most spectacular of all. Not many of you put much faith in Krzynowek and Lobodzinski in 2008 so their lack of good performances wasn’t such a huge disappointment.

Other news: Let the transfer rumours season begin. Here are the latest news from the Polish transfer window front.

Grzegorz Szamotulski signed a contract with Hibernian. The Monk made his name in Scotland after an impressive spell at Dundee United in 2007; he only left this club to make space for his friend Lukasz Zaluska. Szamo shouldn’t have problems with regular play at Easter Road, he’s still a lot better than your average British keeper.

Young Polish goalie, Artur Krysiak, was loaned out by Birmingham to Motherwell till the end of the season, therefore becoming the fourth Polish keeper in Scotland. Krysiak was unable to win any playing time for the Blues so this move seems logical both for the player and the club. It’s something that Bartosz Bialkowski should think about as well.

Kamil Grosicki made an attempt to rescue his career and signed a contract with Jagiellonia Bialystok (from what I know he’s loaned from Legia). Everything is possible in his case, expect the Ekstraklasa to become more spectacular, both on and off field, in 2009.

I wrote about it before, but now it’s almost 100% confirmed that Lukasz Gargula chose Wisla Krakow’s offer over the Legia Warsaw’s one. The only question is whether Gargula moves to Krakow during the current transfer window (Wisla would have to pay a transfer fee to GKS Belchatow) or waits till July to move to Krakow on a free transfer. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in Gargula’s staying in a mid table club much longer, he’d just waste his time and potential there.

Apparently, Napoli didn’t forget about Tomasz Jodlowiec and repeated the offer they made half a year ago. However, Jodla doesn’t want to leave Poland till the end of the season and rejects any opportunities of moving abroad. He wants to help Polonia Warsaw win the Polish championship. From what I read, the interest in Jodlowiec was very serious in the summer and is as serious now. Supposedly, the Napoli manager went as far as to guarantee Jodlowiec the place in the starting lineup. If I was in Jodla’s place I wouldn’t think twice and get on the first plane to Italy. Let’s hope Napoli officials are determined enough to repeat their offer for the third time in the summer of 2009.

Corriere Dello Sport reports that, while watching Jodlowiec, Maciej Rybus caught the attention of Napoli scouts. Still, the player himself hasn’t heard about it and there was no official offer sent to Legia for the 19 year old left winger. I think it’s wise for Rybus to stay in Warsaw a bit longer, especially that he plays quite regularly for a player of his age.

Dariusz Dudka is still unhappy at Auxerre. After some speculations about his move to FC Moscow, Anderlecht in another club that is interested in his services. The transfer would include a half a year paid loan deal. Dudka is desperately looking for a place where he feels needed and would play regularly. Somehow, I don’t really see this transfer happening. Auxerre will fight against relegation in 2009 and I can’t imagine they get rid of a player that can cover every position in defence and be a backup for the defensive midfielder spot. It would be a stupid move on their side.

Get ready for more of this, Energie Cottbus is just another club linked with Jacek Krzynowek. It has slowly become a tradition to sell Krzyniu to various clubs during every transfer window. The fact is, so far Felix Magath surprisingly resisted selling the player that he most often doesn’t even see in Wolfsburg’s match squad. Is it possible he’ll finally realize that this situation doesn’t help anyone? Legia Warsaw, Slask Wroclaw and Gornik Zabrze were other clubs linked with Krzynowek.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a proper transfer window without some speculations concerning Artur Boruc. The Holy Goalie is the first candidate to replace Shay Given at Newcastle, provided the latter leaves for Manchester City. Since Lukasz Zaluska joins Celtic later in the summer, I don’t think Boruc will be sold during the current tranfer window as Celtic would be left without a proper goalie for half a year. We should be prepared that Artie will be linked with any decent club in need of a new goalkeeper.

Highlights:Some good performances by Poles in the FA Cup

A goal of a rare beauty from Ebi Smolarek

A typical finish from Grzegorz “Rasialdo” Rasiak

A nice surprise, an assist from polish youngster Tomasz Cywka (though I think he tried to shoot really)