Marked for Maksym Starushko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Jun 2032
Szymon Zalewski damages knee ligaments — 62 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 62 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.
Market28 Jun 2032
Kacper Buniak 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 Polonia Warszawa can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2032
The deal with Cracovia 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.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2032
$15.0K on the table at Pogon. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2032
Ruch wanted more than $1.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2032
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.
Squad28 Jun 2032
Words at Polonia Warszawa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Szymon Królak 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.
Squad28 Jun 2032
Maksym Starushko 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 dugout28 Jun 2032
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Squad7 Jun 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Szymon Zalewski
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Polonia Warszawa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
Market7 Jun 2032
“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.
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2032
The deal with Jagiellonia 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 2032
Robert Dadok 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 Polonia Warszawa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Jun 2032
$744.2K from the owner keeps Polonia Warszawa afloat
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2032
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ruch have kept their man, and Polonia Warszawa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 May 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Szymon Zalewski
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Polonia Warszawa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market31 May 2032
“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.
Squad31 May 2032
Robert Dadok 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.
Squad31 May 2032
A move Maksym Starushko would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Maksym Starushko is living that version at Polonia Warszawa, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad31 May 2032
Words at Polonia Warszawa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Szymon Królak 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 dugout31 May 2032
Kacper Buniak 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.