Marked for Szymon Bębenek
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Oct 2026
Ruch are in real trouble now
Position 13, 8 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Ruch may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Ruch
Martin Konczkowski 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Dominik Preisler 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
3 matches without a goal for Ruch
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nikodem Proczek
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ruch lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Squad14 Sep 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 Ruch this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Ruch training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dominik Preisler 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.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
Ruch supporters have found a favourite in Szymon Bębenek
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Szymon Bębenek has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ruch get the job done against Lechia
A 1‑0 win over Lechia, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.04, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market14 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Ruch spent the window trying to move Szymon Bębenek on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nikodem Proczek damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ruch will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match29 Aug 2026
The wait goes on for Ruch
6 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.
Market31 Aug 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 Ruch, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 Ruch this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Ruch training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dominik Preisler 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.