Marked for Léo Borges
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market6 Sep 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market6 Sep 2027
The Legia deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Linus Wahlqvist reports back to Pogon with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 17 in, 11 out at Pogon
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Shakhtar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Pogon
Jean-Pierre Nsame was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
Pogon asked and Shakhtar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Francesco Camarda is the division's best young player this month
At 19 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Pogon will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market28 Jun 2027
Only the photograph left for Lukas Willen
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lukas Willen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pogon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad28 Jun 2027
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Musa Juwara has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad28 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pogon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Pogon asked and Karpaty said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Benjamin Mendy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Pogon will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Pogon will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lukas Willen, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words exchanged at Pogon
Jean-Pierre Nsame and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wisla Krakow have kept their man, and Pogon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market21 Jun 2027
Krzysztof Kamiński has left for Lechia in a $18.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 29 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan enquiry to Slask: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
A loan move for Samuel Kováčik is in the works
Pogon have made the call to Legia. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
When it matters, José Pozo plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad21 Jun 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
Pogon say no — this time
The offer from Piast for Jean-Pierre Nsame was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market7 Jun 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pogon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $45.0K — a club that wants Rafał Mamla enough to be asked twice.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
The deal with Lechia is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pogon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad7 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pogon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
An offer of $39.0K for Rafał Mamla
Pogon have gone to Korona with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market7 Jun 2027
Léo Borges is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pogon has been clear about where Léo Borges stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
Words exchanged at Pogon
Mateusz Skrzypczak and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout10 May 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout10 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout10 May 2027
Musa Juwara knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pogon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market10 May 2027
The Léo Borges story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Léo Borges signs something — a contract at Pogon or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout10 May 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad12 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Pogon
Jean-Pierre Nsame and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Pogon are still strangers to each other
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Attila Szalai gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Attila Szalai is on it.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Musa Juwara has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Musa Juwara has written the date down.
Market12 Apr 2027
Léo Borges linked with a move away
The name of Léo Borges keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Pogon say nothing, which says plenty.
Market12 Apr 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pogon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pogon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Too much change too quickly at Pogon
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
Musa Juwara knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Musa Juwara trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Pogon
Jean-Pierre Nsame was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pogon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
José Pozo has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Pogon will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market1 Mar 2027
The loan was meant to give him football. 4 games and 0 goals later he is back at Pogon no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Squad1 Mar 2027
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Market1 Mar 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Benjamin Mendy signs something — a contract at Pogon or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Feb 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 98 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market1 Feb 2027
Léo Borges hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pogon can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Window shuts: 4 in, 2 out at Pogon
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Pogon had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Leon, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Pogon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Pogon
Roman Vantukh and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets1 Feb 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Cracovia have kept their man, and Pogon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Loan watch1 Feb 2027
“I did not go to Jagiellonia to sit and watch. I want to come back to Pogon and fight for my place.” 6 appearances in 24 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.09, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad7 Dec 2026
13 goals and a season average of 7.30. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Pogon
Roman Vantukh and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match5 Dec 2026
Ruch made Pogon work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Léo Borges named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Léo Borges is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Jakub Buksa, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Pogon
Roman Vantukh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match17 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Gornik Zabrze, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market19 Oct 2026
No place for Léo Borges in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Léo Borges has his answer from Pogon; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Gornik Zabrze to sit and watch. I want to come back to Pogon and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Musa Juwara
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jean-Pierre Nsame is on it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Oct 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Jean-Pierre Nsame has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
12 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match17 Sep 2026
A European night to forget for Pogon
0‑3. Galatasaray play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.34, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Pogon
Attila Szalai and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Match19 Sep 2026
Pogon caught on 97 minutes
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Piast scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Pogon dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Match19 Sep 2026
Pogon and Piast take a point apiece
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Bohdan Butko left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Bohdan Butko will call it something else in private.
In brief
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The dugout
Jakub Świerczok gets it from the manager
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Léo Borges
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pogon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match12 Sep 2026
Still nobody has beaten Pogon
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match12 Sep 2026
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 6 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Filip Čuić reaches 100 appearances
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Bohdan Butko
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Pogon, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nobody on the pitch touched Léo Borges
7.14, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Pogon had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Pogon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Pogon until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market7 Sep 2026
Add another name to the list: Oleksandriya have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Filip Čuić. The answer from Pogon has not changed — yet.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Pogon asked and Lech said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Pogon
Roman Vantukh was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Pogon ran out of time with Piast. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
International break empties Pogon
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Aug 2026
Nobody wants to play Pogon right now
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The clubs have shaken hands with Piast; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
At 38 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.99, and nobody on the pitch better.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Pogon asked and Nashville SC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pogon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
Pogon get the job done against Legia
A 1‑0 win over Legia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rajmund Molnár, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Pogon are still strangers to each other
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.