Marked for Łukasz Gerstenstein
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout10 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Slask may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 May 2027
Jakub Grič 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.
The dugout10 May 2027
A promise honoured at Slask
Something was said to Yegor Matsenko and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad10 May 2027
A falling-out at Slask
Jorge Moreno and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Łukasz Gerstenstein, and the manager let it.
The dugout10 May 2027
Damian Warchoł is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Maciej Lewandowski has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Slask may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad3 May 2027
Przemysław Banaszak 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Jorge Moreno 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 Slask this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yehor Sharabura, and the manager let it.
Market3 May 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.
The dugout3 May 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Slask told Łukasz Gerstenstein something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout3 May 2027
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Łukasz Gerstenstein's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Market3 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Slask know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces29 Mar 2027
Supporters organise against the Slask board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Slask boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market29 Mar 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marko Dijakovic will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slask the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad29 Mar 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Petr Schwarz 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 Slask this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Łukasz Gerstenstein commits to Slask for another 4 years.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Jakub Grič 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Wages eat 91% of everything Slask earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Jakub Grič gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market11 Jan 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Slask people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
Szymon Rygiel: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Slask have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market11 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Slask have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Łukasz Gerstenstein is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Slask training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Przemysław Banaszak 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.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Polonia Warszawa have kept their man, and Slask go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Slask
Mariusz Malec and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match9 Jan 2027
Puszcza Niepołomice left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Dec 2026
14 matches without a win for Slask
The run now stands at 14, and the questions being asked around Slask are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Dec 2026
“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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Yehor Sharabura: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Slask have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Slask
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Przemysław Banaszak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Łukasz Gerstenstein commits to Slask for another 4 years.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Slask
Jorge Moreno 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Antoni Klimek
“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.
Market7 Dec 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Patryk Sokołowski
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Match
Point won or two lost for Slask?
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Oskar Mielcarz: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Jakub Buksa could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.65
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.65, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Match17 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Slask
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Maksymilian Dziuba, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Lamine Bâ pops up at the right end — 7.85
7.85, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“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.
Match17 Oct 2026
No clean sheets in sight for Slask
6 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dominik Szala is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 22 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Slask
Michał Szromnik 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jorge Moreno arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jorge Moreno has, at Slask, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Patryk Sokołowski, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Slask training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakub Grič 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
He is 20, and nobody at Slask signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Gornik Leczna next, and one man in the Slask dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market12 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Przemysław Banaszak’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Marko Dijakovic asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Slask training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Przemysław Banaszak 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.51, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match12 Sep 2026
Late, late show earns Slask a point
Minute 94, against Polonia Warszawa, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Slask
5 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Maciej Lewandowski was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Slask dressing room was either.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Stal Mielec in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market14 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Przemysław Banaszak’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Slask did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Slask 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Slask asked and Raków Częstochowa 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
Przemysław Banaszak 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The clock did what Odra Opole would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Damian Warchoł
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Łukasz Gerstenstein is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Petr Schwarz's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.