Lech put spotlight back on Poland
Lech Poznan may have enjoyed a slice of good fortune in beating Manchester City on Thursday. City failed to take their chances and Lech got a freak goal.
But it was a very ‘English’ performance that won the game, both on and off the pitch.
The players kept going for it and deserved their reward, sealed with a sensational third from Mateusz Mozdzen in the last minute.
Even the most loyal Lech supporters were hoping for a draw at best – but the supporters themselves played a part. League games in Poland are mostly played out in front of a few thousand spectators: for this game there were more than 40,000 crammed into the stadium and they were in full voice.
In terms of resources, the two clubs could hardly be further apart. Lech have an annual budget of about €8 million – rather less than City are paying Yaya Toure. Their transfer budget was about €2.3m this year.
Struggling to compete in the league – they are currently next to bottom after losing 1-0 to Ruch Chorzow on Sunday – it’s an astonishing achievement for them to be competing with both City and Juventus for a place in the next round of the Europa League.
The difficulty for Lech, as well as for other leading sides such as Wisla Kraków, is that they simply don’t have the money to retain talented local players. It’s a vicious circle, not helped by the way that the Extraklasa league has fallen into disrepute of late.
However, another match at the weekend suggests there might be some hope on the horizon.
Not in Poland, but further to the west – in Dortmund to be exact.
Football in Germany is enjoying another sparkling season, reinforced by their World Cup showing. Once again the Bundesliga is proving to be the most competitive of Europe’s major leagues and the favourites have been struggling to impose themselves.
Bayern Munich might have a 100% record in the Champions League, but they’ve only won four of their 11 league games and are currently back in ninth place.
Schalke, last season’s success story, are two points off the bottom, and Werder Bremen are threatening to go into freefall after being humbled 6-0 in Stuttgart.
While the big teams struggle, Borussia Dortmund have taken full advantage. Of course they are hardly a small team – they average over 73,000 fans at the Westfalen Stadion, not far behind Real Madrid – but they have underachieved badly over the past seven years.
Bringing in Jurgen Klopp as coach has made a difference. He’s only enjoyed modest success in his career so far, but he’s a character: so popular as a TV pundit that he’s been offered his own show. That seems to have rubbed off on his players.
Most of them are little-known, apart from the captain Sebastian Kehl, but they have played with such speed and precision that the opposition have been blown away.
Latest victims Hannover competed for an hour or so, but collapsed towards the end and went down 4-0 in front of their own fans.
Chief executioners were two of Dortmund’s three Polish players.
Robert Lewandowski was at Lech Poznan before his summer move to Germany and has already endeared himself to fans at his new club by scoring in the derby against Schalke.
Alongside him is former Polish footballer of the year Jakub Blaszczykowski – known universally as Kuba, which is easier on the German commentators as well as on the back of a shirt.
The two of them came on with 15 minutes left. They might have scored three or four, though in the end it was only a couple, but their passing and movement ripped Hannover apart.
At 22, Lewandowski is the big young hope of Polish football, but judging by his performances this season, Kuba might become a very important creative influence for his country, as he is for Dortmund.
Further back, Lukasz Piszczek is proving to be a solid defender after spending most of this past two seasons on the injury list at Hertha Berlin.
Whether Dortmund can sustain the pace is the question, but nine wins and a goal difference of 20 mean that Bayern Munich in particular have a huge amount of catching up to do if they are to retain the Bundesliga title.
