Since the weekend the Polish football world has been shaken by an unseemly spectacle surrounding the last qualifying spaces allowing entry into the top 8 of the Ekstraklasa – the so-called ‘Championship group’ which allows clubs the opportunity to fight for European places and guarantees them survival from relegation. The controversy concerns several clubs which […]
Tag Archives: Zbigniew Boniek
The Polish national team is on the cusp of qualifying for the European Championships for only the third time in its history. A low-scoring draw on Sunday at home to Ireland is all Poland need to make it to Euro 2016 in France. This Polish side has received a lot of positive press – both […]
I answered some questions for the excellent French language website Footballski.fr which deals with football in Eastern Europe. I present the English version here – it was a chance for me to clarify my views on a number of different issues, the Polish FA, fan culture in Poland and the enigmatic Zbigniew Boniek. Read on for […]
It’s a cold November day in 2011, a reporter strides across Wrocław’s spacious main square towards an unassuming young man wearing a light jacket. As the reporter approaches the man fiddles with his coat, it’s obviously a bit chilly. The journalist asks in Polish: ‘What do you think about Polish patriotism?’. A smile breaks out […]
My first memories of football stretch back to the 1986 World Cup. I recall having a lovely wall-chart with all the games laid out on it and, as only a six year old could do, dutifully filling in the results with a trusty black pen. Apart from the wall-chart the other thing I remember from […]
Fans look on as Poland crashed out of the European Championships last year Photo: Banzaj.pl I sat down outside a Warsaw sports hall on a bright October day to eat some lunch. A Polish acquaintance joined me and we had a chat about the football tournament we were taking part in. After a while our […]
Zbigniew Boniek playing for Juventus against Liverpool Source: igol.pl In the last couple of weeks Polonia Warsaw’s Paweł Wszołek and Górnik Zabrze’s Łukasz Skorupski have been acquired by Serie A clubs. Wszołek (Sampdoria) and Skorupski (AS Roma) are part of a growing contingent of Polish players plying their trade in Italy’s premier club competition. Rafał […]
Last night brought the return of international football to Warsaw as Poland took on Ukraine at the national stadium. Football at the national stadium will always take me back to the heady days of last summer when hope drifted through the streets of Warsaw during Euro 2012. Hope we all know is a dangerous commodity […]
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