Marked for Marcel Mendes-Dudziński
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 May 2027
Sebastian Madejski damages knee ligaments — 24 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 24 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad17 May 2027
Otar Kakabadze 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Pau Sans falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match30 Jan 2027
Derby days make names, and Kahveh Zahiroleslam made his against Wisla Krakow. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Match30 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Cracovia
The unbeaten run reaches 10. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad1 Feb 2027
262 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Cracovia support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Market1 Feb 2027
Lechia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Cracovia did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Otar Kakabadze 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
The chase for Marcel Mendes-Dudziński ended with $150.0K changing hands and Piast out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Pau Sans falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match30 Jan 2027
Cracovia keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad1 Feb 2027
Piotr Liszewski damages knee ligaments — 102 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 102 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market1 Feb 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 Piast, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Piast may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market1 Feb 2027
Slask come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Piast did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Juande Rivas in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Piast this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Piotr Liszewski is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market1 Feb 2027
Karol Szymański has left for Cracovia in a $56.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Piotr Liszewski
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Piast lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match23 Jan 2027
Piast taken apart
0‑3 to Lechia, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 33 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Piast
Juande Rivas 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.
Squad25 Jan 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Piast training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abdel Lamanje is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
Inquest at Piast
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The terraces25 Jan 2027
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.