“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 The request is on a desk at Wieczysta Kraków, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wieczysta Kraków have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wieczysta Kraków this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Petar Pušić 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Adam Frankowski is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Nobody at Wieczysta Kraków will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Wieczysta Kraków, another week without a signature from Maciej Gajos.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wieczysta Kraków this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Pušić 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.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Karol Lewandowski after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“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 Wieczysta Kraków, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lechia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The offer went to Pogoń Siedlce this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Łukasz Bomba 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Petar Pušić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Karol Lewandowski to a room that had heard them before.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Wieczysta Kraków lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑3 against Jagiellonia, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.53 for the rest of it.
The offer went to GKS Tychy this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Łukasz Bomba 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.
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Wieczysta Kraków lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Wieczysta Kraków, and it is not being withdrawn.
Wieczysta Kraków had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Lech, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Wieczysta Kraków have done the hard part with Cracovia, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$59.0K on the table at GKS Tychy. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Petar Pušić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jagiellonia have kept their man, and Wieczysta Kraków go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Josh Robinson
Wiktor Hatalski 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Pušić 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Wieczysta Kraków have made the call to Cracovia. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aleksandar Đermanović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Wieczysta Kraków will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Carlitos is on it.
“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 Wieczysta Kraków, and it is not being withdrawn.
$59.0K was the most the club would pay and GKS Tychy were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dawid Szymonowicz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ŁKS Łódź have kept their man, and Wieczysta Kraków go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Everybody at Wieczysta Kraków saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wieczysta Kraków this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wieczysta Kraków have made the call to Miedź Legnica. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Wieczysta Kraków had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
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.
Kacper Błaszkiewicz 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.
27 appearances and 5 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wieczysta Kraków have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Petar Pušić 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Carlitos is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wieczysta Kraków can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dawid Szymonowicz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Wieczysta Kraków will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Something was said to Kacper Gutowski and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Wieczysta Kraków could ask drops and the wages Lucas Piazón can ask rise.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jacek Góralski'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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Wieczysta Kraków know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Wieczysta Kraków scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.95 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Lucas Piazón 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.
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rafał Pietrzak and Wieczysta Kraków agree another 2 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dawid Szymonowicz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Piazón. 2‑1 against Polonia Bytom, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Wieczysta Kraków lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wieczysta Kraków this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Petar Pušić 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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Nobody at Wieczysta Kraków will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Wieczysta Kraków, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Jacek Góralski'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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wieczysta Kraków lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.52 for the rest of it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wieczysta Kraków have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Wiktor Hatalski 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dawid Szymonowicz 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Karol Lewandowski after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Wieczysta Kraków have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Stefan Feiertag was one of the reasons people came, and $1.8M does not replace that by itself.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Wieczysta Kraków close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wieczysta Kraków this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Jagiellonia have kept their man, and Wieczysta Kraków go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Aleksandar Đermanović 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 36 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Petar Pušić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $60.9K — a club that wants Wojciech Hajda enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Miedź Legnica this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Wiktor Hatalski 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.
Wieczysta Kraków offered $58.0K; Pogon said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Wieczysta Kraków asked and Jagiellonia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Paulinho was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$620.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
He is going to Jagiellonia, the club has $620.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wieczysta Kraków can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $60.9K — a club that wants Dimitris Keramitsis enough to be asked twice.
Wiktor Hatalski 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kacper Błaszkiewicz has, at Wieczysta Kraków, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Wiktor Hatalski and Wieczysta Kraków agree another 3 years.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Carlitos. 2‑1 against Pogoń Siedlce, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Aleksandar Đermanović 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.
Wiktor Hatalski is 18, and Wieczysta Kraków have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
He is 20, and nobody at Wieczysta Kraków signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.