Thinking about football? Maciej Balazinski thinks it’s okay, that’s what football is for after all. Balazinski is the vice-president of Wisla Kraków, the 13-time Polish champions. In the past few weeks, Polish football clubs have also been small NGOs collecting and distributing aid supplies, allowing Ukrainian refugees to play and finding a contact point for accommodation. “Everyone helps,” says Balazinski, who worked as a lawyer in Germany for a number of years. “And of course we help too.”
There are special circumstances that precede the World Cup play-off game between Poland and Sweden. On the one hand, there is enormous euphoria in an already “soccer mad country”, as Balazinski charmingly puts it. There is hope for the folk hero and world footballer Robert Lewandowski, and there will also be almost 55,000 spectators in the sold-out Silesian Stadium in Chorzow this Tuesday, hoping to take part in the global football event again. One remembers: The first World Cup since 2018 in Russia, where Vladimir Putin presented himself as a moderate host before he had Ukraine invaded by his troops.
The war has an impact on Polish football
Because that’s the other side from the point of view of the Poles: the war, which is taking place not far from the country’s borders with the neighboring country – and which of course also has an impact on Polish football. The opponent in the first elimination round would have been Russia of all places, and the Poles would have boycotted the game if the Russian national team hadn’t been excluded a little later anyway.
“Absolutely the right decision,” says Balazinski, who also points to the close ties between Polish and Ukrainian football: there is cooperation between clubs, youth tournaments involving Polish and Ukrainian teams are regularly held, and professionals often play in them the leagues of the neighboring state. And last but not least, the two countries put together a very successful European Championship 2012, despite audible skepticism in other parts of Europe.
Poland and Ukraine have a historically ambivalent relationship, with ups and downs, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But there has seldom been as much unity and solidarity as there is at the moment: According to the latest United Nations figures, 3.6 million Ukrainians have left the country, and Poland has taken in around 2.1 million of them – that’s around 60 percent of those who fled Ukraine. So it’s not surprising that Balazinski says he doesn’t know anyone in Polish football “who doesn’t help out in some way.”
Kosta Runjaic, head coach in Szczecin, was once also a coach at 1860 Munich – here is a picture from 2016.
(Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa)
Kosta Runjaic, the coach of the Polish table leader Pogon Stettin and former coach of various German professional teams, reports something similar. He says: “You can tell that the war is an issue in the dressing room.” In the Polish stadiums, however, anti-Russian chants can also be heard, sometimes with wild insults. So it cannot be ruled out that something like this will also be heard during the game against Sweden.
However, only a few players from the domestic league have been nominated for the play-off, as the team’s managers are all under contract in other European countries: Wojciech Szczesny from Juventus Turin is in goal, the veteran Kamil Glik organizes the defense and playmaker Piotr Zielinski from SSC Napoli is considered the outstanding individual in the squad – right behind, of course: Robert Lewandowski. “It will depend on him,” is the unsurprising prognosis of Wisla Vice-President Balazinski. But one factor should not be underestimated: “We have two million additional fans in the country on Tuesday!”