Hi It's about time Sunderland started sending a few scouts over here. Last night Gdansk drew 2-2 (after leading twice) to a very strong Barcelona squad. Poland is an ideal place to pick up young players for peanuts (I think the polish record transfer is about 3.5million). Look at Dortmund with 3 players in the first team. for those who want to see the goals.... http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2013/07/30/lechia-gdansk-vs-barcelona-2-2-highlights-2013-friendly-roberto-messi-goals-video/
I watched a couple of sizeable chunks of that game mate and they looked pretty dangerous on the attack, especially down the right hand side. I won't try spelling names or owt, but you are right, Polish footballers have long been of a great standard, lest we forget that germany have been poaching many of their top talents for years and giving them passports! Podolski & Klose, Germany's second top goalscorer of all time, being the obvious shouts right now. Piszcek, Blazykowski, Lewandowski could walk into 99% of teams on the planet, and there are more besides. They should do a bit better in truth.
The problem in Poland is that most of the kids who played abroad are German Poles or Poles who's family has ties to the west. You very rarely see Polish kids having a knock about and most schools are setup for indoor sports.
I guess there's a lack of budget as well, suppose that's what the german teams do, scout, offer a better life still at a relative pittance to them, and ship them over. I know Hertha Berlin seem to unearth a hell of as lot of Polish kids, and have sold some on for great money, I think Nurnberg too, guess it's an East german thing.
To be honest the standard of the league football is poor. The Ekstaklasse (premier league) is as good as the 2nd division bar a couple of teams. The Polish government (probably funded by the EU) have just spend a load on coaching and new pitches so hopefully the standard will rise. They seem to be doing their best to improve (unlike the useless FA). The Polish market is rife for an English top team to come and exploit. Sunderland could do no worse then employing the likes of Darius Kubicki (a former manager of Gdansk) to look at and run the marketing/development side of things here. There are about 600,000-1,000,000 poles in the UK as well.
Totally agree .. I used to go and watch Dortmund a lot when I worked in Germany 79-84 and even then they were taking a lot of talented Polish players on and seemed to scout the Eastern blocks rigoroursly..
Good shout mate. I wouldnt stop at just poland either most eastern European countries can unearth players with attitude and technique for a pittance of what you would pay for an British player at the same level. Tom Ince prime example. Bet there are thousands of players over there at his level costing a tenth of the price.
Great servant whilst at the club. He also studied at college in Sunderland whilst playing so must some sort of a brain.
I think a few teams have them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSJ1kkPqHJY Bartosz Bererszynski - polish international plays for legia warsaw probably available for 1.5 million..21 years old. Good tackler, likes to spray the ball forward but doesn't often get past the half way line. I'm a believer that Colback should be nurtured into the LB position.
