Marked for Kacper Duda
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Dec 2029
Bartosz Mrozek 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. Bartosz Mrozek has, at Lech, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market24 Dec 2029
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Dec 2029
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Market24 Dec 2029
As if he never left: Bartosz Mrozek returns
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Bartosz Mrozek is a Lech player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad24 Dec 2029
Words exchanged at Lech
Allahyar Sayyadmanesh 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.
Squad24 Dec 2029
A row about effort at Lech
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luke Thomas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad24 Dec 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bartosz Mrozek commits to Lech for another 4 years.
The dugout24 Dec 2029
The manager makes an example of Fernando
“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.
The dugout24 Dec 2029
Nobody at Lech 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Boardroom28 May 2029
Silverware for Lech
They will talk about this season in this town for a long time. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route is already agreed.
Match23 May 2029
Lech make it 10 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Lech have 10 straight wins of it.
Squad28 May 2029
27 goals and a season average of 7.72 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match23 May 2029
Cup progress for Lech
A 2‑0 win over Legia, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad28 May 2029
A fracture rules Lukas Willen out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lech will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad28 May 2029
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. Lech will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market28 May 2029
João Moutinho has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lech they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market28 May 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lech can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout28 May 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Lech may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Dec 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Lech are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad25 Dec 2028
A falling-out at Lech
Allahyar Sayyadmanesh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Patrick Cutrone 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 dugout25 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Too much change too quickly at Lech
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 dugout25 Dec 2028
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 Allahyar Sayyadmanesh is on it.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Lech told Roberto Massimo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
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.
Market25 Dec 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Allahyar Sayyadmanesh signs something — a contract at Lech or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Lech
Allahyar Sayyadmanesh 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.
Loan watch3 Apr 2028
The goals keep arriving from Yannick Agnero’s exile
14 goals in 32 games at Fatih Karagumruk — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lech updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Squad3 Apr 2028
A row about effort at Lech
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Robert Gumny was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
Mikael Ishak has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lech 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.
Loan watch3 Apr 2028
22 appearances at Podbeskidzie and the goals keep coming. Lech are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
Rajmund Molnár 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.
The dugout3 Apr 2028
“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.
Market3 Apr 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Allahyar Sayyadmanesh’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market3 Apr 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Lech, another week without a signature from Lukas Willen.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Feb 2028
Lech are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 55 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
No sign of nerves from Igor Owczarek at 18 — 7.72
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Igor Owczarek did not need any: 7.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lech will try again when the window opens; Espanyol may not be selling by then.
Market7 Feb 2028
Lech say no — this time
The offer from Legia for Daniel Håkans 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.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Lech close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 7 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A move Kacper Duda 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. Kacper Duda is living that version at Lech, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at Lech
Allahyar Sayyadmanesh 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.
Market7 Feb 2028
Kacper Duda arrives at Lech as the heir apparent
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Kacper Duda is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
The terraces7 Feb 2028
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Jonathan Martin made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
The terraces7 Feb 2028
Wisla Krakow sell a favourite for $1.2M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Kacper Duda was one of the reasons people came, and $1.2M does not replace that by itself.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Window shuts: 11 in, 11 out at Wisla Krakow
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 11 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
Wisla Krakow had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Legia, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market7 Feb 2028
Kacper Duda has left for Lech in a $1.2M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Leo Bengtsson 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 Feb 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jakub Krzyżanowski and Wisla Krakow agree another 4 years.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dominik Hładun was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.