Marked for Izei Cano
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Jun 2043
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Pogon will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad1 Jun 2043
Tempers go at Pogon
Ibrahim Osman 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 Jun 2043
Only the photograph left for Izei Cano
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Izei Cano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pogon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Mar 2043
Jónatas Noro breaks a bone — 72 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom9 Mar 2043
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Dries Lukaku has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad9 Mar 2043
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bram Wesseling and Pogon agree another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Feb 2043
Jónatas Noro breaks a bone — 107 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 107 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad2 Feb 2043
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Squad2 Feb 2043
260 appearances across 16 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Pogon know what they have.
Market2 Feb 2043
“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.
Squad2 Feb 2043
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match31 Jan 2043
5 matches without a win for Pogon
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Pogon are no longer polite ones.
Match31 Jan 2043
A bad afternoon for Pogon against Lech
0‑1 to Lech, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings2 Feb 2043
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market2 Feb 2043
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Maciej Piatek leaves Pogon the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match22 Nov 2042
Nobody wins at Pogon
22 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad24 Nov 2042
The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.
Match19 Nov 2042
Pogon out of the cup
Zaglebie ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match22 Nov 2042
3‑0, and Matías Gómez took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Pogon tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings24 Nov 2042
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.97, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings24 Nov 2042
Two goals and a mark of 8.61 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad24 Nov 2042
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad24 Nov 2042
“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.
Player ratings24 Nov 2042
Kacper Woźniak, 33, rolls back the years — 8.25
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Sep 2042
“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.
Squad15 Sep 2042
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 Sep 2042
Jan Gawarecki 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.
Match13 Sep 2042
Pogon come up short against Piast
Piast left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Sep 2042
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Antoni Klecha commits to Pogon for another 2 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Aug 2042
Cup progress for Pogon
A 3‑2 win over Ruch, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad25 Aug 2042
A one-man rearguard from Rafal Glik
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings25 Aug 2042
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match23 Aug 2042
Nobody wins at Pogon
16 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match20 Aug 2042
Izei Cano wins it after the whistle should have gone
108 minutes played. Izei Cano found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Ruch went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market25 Aug 2042
“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.
Match23 Aug 2042
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.
Player ratings25 Aug 2042
Izei Cano scored one and made one — 7.94
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.94, and 2 involvements.
Squad25 Aug 2042
Words at Pogon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Gawarecki 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Jun 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kamil Grosicki
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pogon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market30 Jun 2042
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market30 Jun 2042
“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.
In brief
-
Squad
Words at Pogon training over how hard people work
-
Squad
Tempers go at Pogon
-
Squad
5 new faces, and Pogon are still learning each other
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad23 Jun 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kamil Grosicki
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pogon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market23 Jun 2042
Pogon say no — this time
The offer from Wisla Krakow for Sebastian Klich 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.
Squad23 Jun 2042
Jan Gawarecki 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Jun 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kamil Grosicki
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pogon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Jun 2042
Words at Pogon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Gawarecki 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.
Squad16 Jun 2042
Tempers go at Pogon
Gustavo Rijo 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.
Squad16 Jun 2042
The manager makes an example of Daniel Ezendu
“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.
Market16 Jun 2042
Lechia are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Pogon will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market16 Jun 2042
Izei Cano 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 Izei Cano stands, which is more than many ever get.