Polish Football Season 2020/21

[Juliusz]

Matchday 12

League table


Results

Wisła Płock - Pogoń Szczecin 0:0 (postponed from matchday 9)

Cracovia - Wisła Kraków 1:1
Pelle van Amersfoort 85' - Felicio Brown Forbes 61' (penalty)

Jagiellonia Białystok - Warta Poznań 4:3
Jakov Puljić 19', 59', 90'+1 (penalty), Jesús Imaz 28' - Mateusz Kuzimski 15', Michał Jakóbowski 37', Jan Grzesik 43'

Śląsk Wrocław - Raków Częstochowa 1:0
Bartłomiej Pawłowski 71'

Legia Warszawa - Lechia Gdańsk 2:0
Tomáš Pekhart 61', Rafael Lopes 90'+5

Piast Gliwice - Zagłębie Lubin 1:1
Jakub Świerczok 10' - Samuel Mráz 14'

Lech Poznań - Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała 4:0
Thomas Rogne 30', Mikael Ishak 44', Pedro Tiba 46', Dani Ramírez 53'

Pogoń Szczecin - Stal Mielec 2:0
Luka Zahovič 43', Kamil Drygas 57' (penalty)

Wisła Płock - Górnik Zabrze 0:1
Piotr Krawczyk 71'

All matches played behind closed doors.

Top scorers:
10 - Tomáš Pekhart (Legia Warszawa)
8 - Jesús Jiménez (Górnik Zabrze), Jakov Puljić (Jagiellonia Białystok)
7 - Mikael Ishak (Lech Poznań), Flávio Paixão (Lechia Gdańsk)
6 - Jesús Imaz (Jagiellonia Białystok)
5 - Kamil Biliński (Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała), Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Ivi López (both Raków Częstochowa), Róbert Pich (Śląsk Wrocław)

Main event of the week was the Kraków derby Cracovia vs Wisła. There were a lot of refereeing controversies, so no-one talked about the actual level of this match, which was very poor. There were a lot of discussions about refereeing and attitude of players, coaches and club officials towards them. Cracovia owner Janusz Filipiak was insulting the ref heavily which was easily heard in an empty stadium. It is possible that he will be punished by league authorities. From my point of view, there were four mistakes in this match indeed, but two against Cracovia and two against Wisła. So none of the teams was preferred by the ref (Cracovia claim he is 'pro Wisła' because his wife is a Wisła fan according to some Internet posts ) but he just made mistakes.

A very interesting match in Białystok with another hat-trick at home from Jakov Puljić. Another change at the top, Legia and Raków swap places again. Lech won their match against Podbeskidzie, so they may be happy to have neglected last Thursday EL match vs Benfica They were a bit lucky too, because Podbeskidzie took the lead first, but their goal was correctly disallowed.

Today we have Polish Cup round of 16 draw. Here are the participants:

Ekstraklasa: Cracovia, Górnik Zabrze, Lechia Gdańsk, Lech Poznań, Legia Warszawa, Piast Gliwice, Pogoń Szczecin, Raków Częstochowa, Warta Poznań, Zagłębie Lubin
I liga: Arka Gdynia, Górnik Łęczna, ŁKS, Puszcza Niepołomice, Radomiak Radom
II liga: Chojniczanka Chojnice

GOAL OF THE WEEK: Jakub Świerczok vs. Zagłębie Lubin almost from the half line! https://streamable.com/uci441
BONUS CONTENT: Story of Mateusz Kuzimski, second-best Polish scorer in the league, who used to work in a warehouse in England https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55146467

[Juliusz]

Matchday 13

League table


Results

Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała - Piast Gliwice 0:5
Jakub Świerczok 38', 41' (penalty), Piotr Malarczyk 60', Sebastian Milewski 83', Tiago Alves 90'+2

Zagłębie Lubin - Śląsk Wrocław 2:1
Dejan Dražić 61' (penalty), Kamil Kruk 90'+4 - Erik Expósito 23'

Warta Poznań - Pogoń Szczecin 1:2
Michał Jakóbowski 46' - Alexander Gorgon 7', Luka Zahovič 11'

Górnik Zabrze - Cracovia 0:2
Pelle van Amersfoort 43' (penalty), Michal Sipľak 63'

Wisła Kraków - Legia Warszawa 1:2
Yaw Yeboah 12' - Tomáš Pekhart 81' (penalty), 89'

Stal Mielec - Lech Poznań 1:1
Andreja Prokić 27' - Pedro Tiba 87'

Raków Częstochowa - Jagiellonia Białystok 3:2
Andrzej Niewulis 17', Petr Schwarz 52' (penalty), 76' (penalty) - Maciej Makuszewski 69', Jesús Imaz 90'+3

Lechia Gdańsk - Wisła Płock 0:1
Dušan Lagator 65'

All matches played behind closed doors.

Top scorers:
12 - Tomáš Pekhart (Legia Warszawa)
8 - Jesús Jiménez (Górnik Zabrze), Jakov Puljić (Jagiellonia Białystok)
7 - Jesús Imaz (Jagiellonia Białystok), Mikael Ishak (Lech Poznań), Flávio Paixão (Lechia Gdańsk)
6 - Jakub Świerczok (Piast Gliwice)
5 - Kamil Biliński (Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała), Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Ivi López (both Raków Częstochowa), Róbert Pich (Śląsk Wrocław)

This week we had two similar matches. Two underdogs (Wisła Kraków and Stal) were leading against the favourites (Legia and Lech, respectively), but eventually didn't win. The difference was, Legia managed again to win a match which was very tough for them. Lech recovered from a mediocre first half too, but again bad luck, lack of the mentality or skills didn't let them win.

We saw also that neglecting Benfica match in order to field the top players vs Podbeskidzie was totally useless for Lech. Everyone scores a lot against Podbeskidzie, they are clearly the worst team in the league now, coach Krzysztof Brede was sacked today. Their next match vs Wisła Płock will be very important in terms of avoiding the relegation.

In other matches, Zagłębie won the Lower Silesia derby vs Śląsk in the last minute through their young defender, who had been subbed in minutes before the end. Nice performances from Pogoń and Raków, although the results don't show that in full. Lechia Gdańsk are in big trouble - four defeats in a row without even a goal scored. Next week they play vs Cracovia, which they have very bad record against.

This week last I liga matches were played this year. Some postponed matches will be played in 2021. Here the standings, Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza are the huge favourites to come back to Ekstraklasa after 3 years. Top two teams are promoted directly, teams from places 3-6 will participate in play-offs similar to those in Championship, 18th team will be relegated.

[bugylibicska]

Best Fifa Football awards 2020: How Robert Lewandowski faced adversity in journey to top
By Lukas Vrablik
BBC Sport
Last updated on17 December 202017 December 2020.
From the sectionEuropean Football

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55317200

[Juliusz]

Matchday 14

League table


Results

Lech Poznań - Pogoń Szczecin 0:4 (postponed from matchday 5)
Thomas Rogne 2' (own goal), Sebastian Kowalczyk 39', Kamil Drygas 45'+7 (penalty), Tomás Podstawski 90'+1

Śląsk Wrocław - Warta Poznań 2:1
Israel Puerto 5', Bartłomiej Pawłowski 54' - Robert Janicki 75'

Wisła Płock - Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała 4:1
Patryk Tuszyński 13', Alan Uryga 21', Dušan Lagator 38', Mateusz Lewandowski 77' - Dušan Lagator 69' (own goal)

Legia Warszawa - Stal Mielec 2:3
Bartosz Slisz 17', Tomáš Pekhart 24' - Maciej Domański 5' (penalty), 43' (penalty), Grzegorz Tomasiewicz 60' (penalty)

Pogoń Szczecin - Zagłębie Lubin 1:0
Michał Kucharczyk 90'+6

Cracovia - Lechia Gdańsk 0:3
Rafał Pietrzak 15', Maciej Gajos 81', Jaroslav Mihalík 90'+4

Lech Poznań - Wisła Kraków 0:1
Jakub Błaszczykowski 67'

Piast Gliwice - Raków Częstochowa 0:0

Jagiellonia Białystok - Górnik Zabrze 1:0
Jesús Imaz 52'

All matches played behind closed doors.

Top scorers:
13 - Tomáš Pekhart (Legia Warszawa)
8 - Jesús Imaz, Jakov Puljić (both Jagiellonia Białystok), Jesús Jiménez (Górnik Zabrze)
7 - Mikael Ishak (Lech Poznań), Flávio Paixão (Lechia Gdańsk)
6 - Jakub Świerczok (Piast Gliwice)
5 - Kamil Biliński (Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała), Maciej Domański (Stal Mielec), Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Ivi López (both Raków Częstochowa), Róbert Pich (Śląsk Wrocław)

Ekstraklasa has come to an end in 2020. Legia will remain on the top of the table for at least 6 more weeks, the TOP 3 already have a few points advantage.

This week Legia and Lech again played vs Stal and Wisła Kraków, but this time another way round. They both lost which was disgraceful. Legia CBs gave away three penalties in a totally nonsense way. The third one shouldn't have been awarded, but still they had plenty of time and weren't even close to score. This is their first loss since 1 October (0-3 vs Qarabag). Lech lost against Wisła and they were quite unlucky, their former GK Mateusz Lis produced some magnificent saves and Jakub Błaszczykowski came back after his 22983412340234th injury to give his team a win. Earlier this week, Lech lost 0-4 vs Pogoń. The loss wasn't surprising at all, given the shape of both teams, but the margin was. Many players are fatigued or injured, they simply couldn't deal with playing both domestic and European football. It is already known that Jakub Moder will leave to Brighton this January, which will yield additional 1m EUR for Lech.

In other matches, Pogoń won their 3rd and 4th game in a row, and are on the third place only because of lower amount of goals scored than Raków. Vs Zagłębie they played 11 vs 10 for over an hour, had two goals correctly disallowed, but then Michał Kucharczyk scored an absolute screamer. He used to score like that in European football too, at Legia vs Cork City in CL qualifying.

Lechia surprisingly won with ease vs Cracovia, Raków dropped points against Piast and Jagiellonia won at home again. Podbeskidzie without the coach are still pathetic, and their first game after winter break will be against Legia... Stal and Wisła Kraków won, so now the bottom three teams are the three newbies, with Podbeskidzie clearly the worst. But the battle for avoiding relegation is definitely not over yet.

Thanks for following the topic! I'll be back with the updates after the weekend of 30-31 January. I will post any interesting transfers or friendlies if they are worth noticing, although the former should rather be posted in the transfer topic.

GOAL OF THE WEEK: definitely Michał Kucharczyk! https://streamable.com/cs4up7

[Juliusz]

Nothing special happened in the last 4 weeks. This is a dull winter break, only a few clubs are active on the transfer market. For example, Lech signed CBs Bartosz Salamon (SPAL) and Antonio Milić (Anderlecht) and CM Jesper Karlström (Djurgården). But in general, many clubs are waiting for the transfer window in the strongest leagues to close and then try to convice some players to come here.

Michał Karbownik from Legia, same as Jakub Moder from Lech, will come to Brighton sooner than expected. His loan was terminated too, so both are going to train and hopefully play for the Premier League side this spring. Legia didn't sign any new player and already lost two important ones (apart from Karbownik, contract with Domagoj Antolić was not extended). Some less significant players, who wouldn't play anyway, left or will leave Legia soon too.

But then out of nowhere something interesting happened - national team coach Jerzy Brzęczek was fired. This is a massive surprise. Most fans were against him and wanted him go, but the FA chairman Zbigniew Boniek has always supported him. Nobody knows so far, why he changed his mind now, because obviously nothing special happened in the last two months with the NT. Rumours say the reason is just the sporting merit, but why it took two months after the last match? Many people, who are definitely non-experts, know it should have happened much earlier. Very interesting to see who will take over.

I promised to post some friendlies and here you are - Legia vs Dynamo Kiev in Dubai 14:00 CET, two links (not sure about geo-blocking):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY2JF4mVF8Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqmQIvO8yMg

[Lorric]

Please, no new manager bounce vs England...

Both streams work for me.

[subway14]

Ekstraklasa is back bitches
https://twitter.com/tomasz_vb/status/13 ... 6354413568

[subway14]

Ekstraklasa skills

[bugylibicska]

Wisla Krakow - Piast Gliwice 3:4, after 20 minutes 3:0, in the 90th minute still 3:2!

[matt]

The current league leaders can be tricky for foreign journalists. How to pronounce Pogon S. for dummies? In italian it's easy: the city is Stettino. Szczecin in polish.

[Juliusz]

Matchday 15

League table


Results

Zagłębie Lubin - Wisła Płock 0:2
Mateusz Szwoch 23' (penalty), Dawid Kocyła 30'

Raków Częstochowa - Pogoń Szczecin 0:1
Adrian Benedyczak 58'

Warta Poznań - Cracovia 1:0
Jakub Kiełb 70'

Lechia Gdańsk - Jagiellonia Białystok 0:2
Jesús Imaz 3', Jakov Puljić 84'

Górnik Zabrze - Lech Poznań 1:1
Alex Sobczyk 7' - Thomas Rogne 60'

Wisła Kraków - Piast Gliwice 3:4
Łukasz Burliga 5', Maciej Sadlok 12', Felicio Brown Forbes 20' - Jakub Świerczok 37', 90' (penalty), Dominik Steczyk 39', Kristopher Vida 90'+4

Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała - Legia Warszawa 1:0
Rafał Janicki 48'

Stal Mielec - Śląsk Wrocław 0:0

All matches played behind closed doors.

Top scorers:
13 - Tomáš Pekhart (Legia Warszawa)
9 - Jesús Imaz, Jakov Puljić (both Jagiellonia Białystok)
8 - Jesús Jiménez (Górnik Zabrze), Jakub Świerczok (Piast Gliwice)
7 - Mikael Ishak (Lech Poznań), Flávio Paixão (Lechia Gdańsk)
5 - Kamil Biliński (Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała), Maciej Domański (Stal Mielec), Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Ivi López (both Raków Częstochowa), Róbert Pich (Śląsk Wrocław)

Ekstraklasa is back with the craziest weekend in this season. I'll try to sum it up briefly:

In Zagłębie vs Wisła Płock match, Djordje Crnomarković (Zagłębie) was encouraged by a staff member to get a yellow card. He can't play next week vs Lech anyway (he's loaned from there) and his next card would suspend him. In order to get it, he tackled Piotr Pyrdoł brutally and broke his leg. Now the case will be dealt by Ekstraklasa, but the question is, how didn't he get a straight red.

Pogoń won their 5th game in a row and conceded just 8 goals in 15 matches. Actually, Legia and Raków were considered to fight for the title, but who knows, maybe this solid team can make a surprise.

After Warta vs Cracovia match, coach Michał Probierz (Cracovia) gave up. He was not only the coach, but vice-charmain too (basically sports director). He explained he felt exhausted and overworked and needs to quit. Why didn't he do that in December, before the preparations... This really doesn't make sense. The owner didn't accept this as he was totally surprised too, so Probierz will stay at Cracovia anyway. He will just leave the club for a short vacation and his assistant will take care of the team for these few days. The main coach should be back for the match vs Pogoń this weekend.

Jagiellonia won in Gdańsk, where they were heavily beaten by Lechia several times before. Young Jakub Kałuziński (Lechia) collected two yellow cards within a few seconds (first for slapping the opponent in the face while fighting for the ball, second for his reaction towards the referee). That was merciless from the ref, but deserved I guess.

Lech dropped points again, in their match vs Górnik three penalties were called off by VAR (two for Lech, one for Górnik).

A totally crazy match in Cracow, Wisła blame the ref for their defeat (he didn't give them a clear penalty while it was 3-0, also the pen for Piast for 3-3 was incorrect). This Peter Hyballa team presses the opponents hard, and then seems to be out of the power early? They drop points again after conceding in the last minutes.

Legia lost again vs a newbie. Podbeskidzie conceded 38 goals in autumn, they kept clean sheet only vs Stal Mielec and now Legia. A total disgrace, Legia weren't even close to equalise. Legia didn't sign any new player this winter, although they need them urgently. Winger Marko Janković from SPAL was supposed to sign, but he failed to pass his medical. This is a disaster, sports director Radosław Kucharski and chairman Dariusz Mioduski are heavily critised.

Stal Mielec kept clean sheet in Ekstraklasa after 24 matches in a row conceding at least one goal (14 matches in 2020 and another 10 back in 1996).

The current league leaders can be tricky for foreign journalists. How to pronounce Pogon S. for dummies? In italian it's easy: the city is Stettino. Szczecin in polish.

If you figured out Wojciech Szczęsny last name pronounciation, the first four letters are the same. These are characters that are extremely difficult for foreigners who try to learn Polish. I can't test it as I'm at work now, but try even this: https://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Szczecin. It should work I believe.

[Juliusz]

Matchday 16

League table


Results

Lechia Gdańsk - Warta Poznań 1:1
Michał Nalepa 33' - Mariusz Rybicki 72'

Lech Poznań - Zagłębie Lubin 0:0

Piast Gliwice - Śląsk Wrocław 2:0
Michał Żyro 23', Patryk Sokołowski 58'

Pogoń Szczecin - Cracovia 1:0
Kacper Smoliński 43'

Legia Warszawa - Raków Częstochowa 2:0
Luquinhas 29', Tomáš Pekhart 64' (penalty)

Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała - Górnik Zabrze 2:1
Kamil Biliński 79', 90' - Michał Koj 10'

Wisła Kraków - Jagiellonia Białystok 2:0
Maciej Sadlok 55', Felicio Brown Forbes 88'

Stal Mielec - Wisła Płock postponed due to heavy snowfall

All matches played behind closed doors.

Top scorers:
14 - Tomáš Pekhart (Legia Warszawa)
9 - Jesús Imaz, Jakov Puljić (both Jagiellonia Białystok)
8 - Jesús Jiménez (Górnik Zabrze), Jakub Świerczok (Piast Gliwice)
7 - Kamil Biliński (Podbeskidzie Bielsko-Biała), Mikael Ishak (Lech Poznań), Flávio Paixão (Lechia Gdańsk)
5 - Felicio Brown Forbes (Wisła Kraków), Maciej Domański (Stal Mielec), Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Ivi López (both Raków Częstochowa), Róbert Pich (Śląsk Wrocław)

Ekstraklasa matches this weekend were hard to watch because of difficult weather conditions. It's freezing cold and the pitches are basically unplayable. Today we have heavy snow in the majority of the country, so one match was called off and another ones can be postponed too. There will be definitely a problem with domestic cup matches - some I liga sides don't have enough developed facilities and two matches were already moved from original venues to Sosnowiec. It's worth mentioning that I liga resumes on weekend 27-28 February and now some teams will have to play vs Ekstraklasa sides in the middle of their preparations - unless these matches are postponed of course.

Pogoń won their 6th game in a row and haven't conceded for 404 minutes! This is incredible, and the last two winning goals were scored by their U-21 players. At the same time, Cracovia fielded 10 foreigners in their starting line-up and only GK Karol Niemczycki was Polish, as he was the obligatory U-21 player in the line-up. This team is basically dead, and the mess around the coach doesn't help either.

Legia recovered and beat Raków after changing their tactics to 3-4-2-1 (similar to Raków). This paid off, but Legia still needs new players. There are more injuries in the team, which is happening frequently now in many teams. These awful pitches can be the reason.

Lech couldn't beat Zagłębie who played basically without their defense (all injured or suspended), Piast is unbeaten in 9 last games, and Podbeskidzie won their second in a row! The latter, who have been pathetic in autumn, have won the same number of league matches as EL GS participant Lech This weekend, among the winners only Pogoń and Legia were higher in the table than their opponents. This means that the fight for avoiding relegation can be really interesting, even though only one team will be relegated.

[Juliusz]

Polish Cup round of 16 results

Puszcza Niepołomice (II) - Lechia Gdańsk (I) 3:1
Warta Poznań (I) - Cracovia (I) 0:1
ŁKS (II) - Legia Warszawa (I) 2:3
Pogoń Szczecin (I) - Piast Gliwice (I) 1:2
Raków Częstochowa (I) - Górnik Zabrze (I) 4:2
Zagłębie Lubin (I) - Chojniczanka Chojnice (III) 0:0, 5:6 on penalties
Radomiak Radom (II) - Lech Poznań (I) 1:1, 3:4 on penalties
Arka Gdynia (II) - Górnik Łęczna (II) to be played on 16 February

Polish Cup quarterfinals - result of the draw

Puszcza Niepołomice - Arka Gdynia/Górnik Łęczna
Chojniczanka Chojnice - Cracovia
Lech Poznań - Raków Częstochowa
Legia Warszawa - Piast Gliwice

There will be one I liga side in the semifinals for sure, while Legia and Lech will face solid opponents from Ekstraklasa. For Cracovia and Lech, the cup is basically the only way to qualify for European football next season.

[Lorric]

Well done to that single surviving tier 3 side that survived again on penalties at a tier a 1 side.

[subway14]

#crapod