Polish football was far from hit this week by Jagiellonia Białystok midfielder Marco Reich’s comments that the Ekstraklasa is comparable in quality to the German third tier.
Whether it’s true or not, the former Walsall, Crystal Palace and Derby County man is the one poor enough to be playing in the Ekstraklasa, and he played 84 minutes this week as Jagiellonia upset high-flying Legia Warszawa thanks to a fine display by Kamil Grosicki.
The young Pole popped a flicked header and diagonal drive from the edge of the box past his former club to wrap up a 2-0 win. Jagiellonia keeper Grzegorz Sandomierski also put in a noteworthy shift with a string of one-handed saves to keep Jagiellonia ahead.
A bit of slapstick
Other goalkeepers didn’t prove quite so competent this week. Odra Wodzisław’s Adam Stachowiak put in the most circus-worthy performance of the weekend against Ruch Chorzów.
His sliding clearance on the edge of the box to opposition players was avant-garde goalkeeping at its most…avant, while his acrobatic leap past the ball for Ruch’s first goal was worthy of a Laurel and Hardy film. He capped things off with a slow motion dive that let in Ruch’s third and bagged a contract with Cirque du Soleil after the game.
The slapstick continued in Polonia Warszawa’s game with Piast Gliwice.
Gliwice’s Jakub Smektała was falling over in defence, in attack and probably on the way to the dressing room before managing to stay on his feet long enough to run 40 yards, skin a couple of players and slot a beautiful effort into the bottom corner from 25 yards.
His teammate Sebastian Olszar underwent a similar change of fortunes, first of all skying balls from a matter of yards before cunningly nutmegging Polonia’s keeper and then screaming: “Who’s the clown now?”
A game of several thighs
Golden Bloody, Korona Kielce, lost, although they did manage to send a GKS Bełchatów player off injured after seven minutes when he was tackled by a pair of late thighs.
Those much underused body parts continued to play a large part in the game as Radosław Cierzniak saved a penalty with two flailing ones.
The half-time orchestra also put a lot of schoolgirl ones on show, much to the chagrin of Poland’s paedophiles, a lot of whom are weighing up the pros of a quick squeeze against the cons of castration.
After all of that, Bełchatów leapfrogged Kielce into eighth place in the table.
Tits and hissy fits
Robert Lewandowski silenced some of his critics at Lech Poznań by salvaging a point against Arka Gdynia with a late looping header.
According to Polish tabloid and full on tit-fest Fakt, Lewandowski flipped out after being criticised after a recent training session and began throwing water bottles at a wall. It was then that someone told him to do the same thing with balls and the backs of nets in the future, rather than slotting them wide of, over and just nowhere near them.
Maciej Szmatiuk had put Gdynia ahead in the 16th minute with a header of his own. Good for him.
Boring
Elsewhere Wisła Kraków continued to tediously dick everyone. Śląsk Wrocław’s Piotr Celeban even tried clotheslining Wisła striker Paweł Brożek, although he only received a red card for his WWE-inspired efforts.
Brożek then capitalised on some hilarious defending by Antoni Łukasiewicz to put Wisła ahead and the league-leaders on track for a 3-1 victory. It should have been 3-0 however as Śląsk’s goal came courtesy of a penalty via a phantom foul and hallucinating referee: see 50 seconds into this clip.
In the other games Cracovia Kraków and KGHM Zagłębie Lubin played out a 1-1 draw, as did copycats, dirty rats Polonia Bytom and Lechia Gdańsk.
Results
Cracovia Kraków 1 – 1 KGHM Zagłębie Lubin
Śląsk Wrocław 1 – 3 Wisła Kraków
Odra Wodzisław 1 -3 Ruch Chorzów
Jagiellonia Białystok 2 – 0 Legia Warszawa
GKS Bełchatów 1 – 0 Korona Kielce
Polonia Bytom 1 - 1 Lechia Gdańsk
Polonia Warszawa 0 -2 Piast Gliwice
Arka Gdynia 1-1 Lech Poznań
The top
Wisła Kraków - 25
Ruch Chorzów - 19
Legia Warszawa - 17
Polonia Bytom -17
Lech Poznań - 14