Three years ago, the most valuable player in Ekstraklasa was Kamil Grosicki. Two years ago, it was again Kamil Grosicki. Last year, it was Efthymios Koulouris, who scored 31 goals and became one of the greatest goal scorers this league has seen in many years.
Then, 48 hours before our first game in Radom, we found out that Koulouris, the league’s top goalscorer, wanted to go to Saudi Arabia. Eventually, we lost him just weeks before the end of the transfer window.
So in reality, we lost the top two players of the last three years in Ekstraklasa.
Kamil is a legend. But all great players, and all of us in life, eventually face age, injuries, and time. In Kamil’s case, because of serious injuries, pain, and the reality of age, we did not have the same Kamil for most of the year. He never made excuses and never publicly spoke about the seriousness of what he was dealing with, but the truth is that most players would have missed the entire season with those injuries.
Then came everything else.
We lost Leo Borges, one of the best left backs in the league, for five months with a broken ankle.
We lost Rajmund Molnar, our young and promising national team player and our new number 9, to an ACL injury for the entire year.
We lost Linus Wahlqvist, one of the top right backs in the league, for months with a knee injury.
We lost José Pozo to another freak accident for almost half of the year.
And on top of that, we had to sell Adrian Przyborek, second most valuable player in Ekstraklasa, to Lazio.
No team in Ekstraklasa had so many injuries to key players like we did. No team lost this many important players in one season.
How would Lech Poznań do if they lost Mikael Ishak for the entire year?
Where would Jagiellonia be without Afimico Pululu for the entire year?
Where would Raków, Motor Lublin, or any other team be if they lost their top striker, their best players, their full backs, and their young talents all in the same season? We lost a 31 goal scorer!
We made 15 new additions, not because we wanted to, but because we had to. This team had no players.
Just before we purchased the club, several important players had already been let go, sold, or released. Vahan Bichakhchyan and several others were gone. This had also happened in previous transfer windows.
People criticize us for not signing or keeping Polish players like Marcel Wędrychowski, Rafał Kurzawa, Kacper Łukasiak, or others. But let’s be fair. We also signed and brought up many Polish players.
Patryk Dziczek. Jan Biegański. Igor Brzyski. Karol Angielski. Natan Ława. Jacek Czapliński, Young players from our academy. Polish players with future.
We did not ignore Polish players. We tried to rebuild the team while also dealing with injuries, departures, financial reality, and a new ownership transition.
And let’s also let’s talk about performance.
Rajmund Molnar alone had more goals in a quarter of a season than all of the departed players combined. I don’t need to go over the Paul’s, cuic, Pozo and other new player’s goal and play contributions.
Had we not allowed the 97th-minute goal against Cracovia a few weeks ago, we would have gone into the last game of the season fighting for Europe competition.
That is how close we were. How many games did we lose or draw this year because of one moment? One injury? One mistake? One missed chance? One late goal? missed penalty?
I think too many people in life are pessimistic. They look at the cup half empty. They focus only on the pain, not the fight. They focus only on what went wrong, not how much had to be overcome. This was a new ownership group to a team that was broken in every aspect.
A new coaching staff in Poland. More than 15 new players from different countries, cultures, languages, religions, and football backgrounds, They all came to this city and became one group. They created a great atmosphere. They showed love and respect for each other, for our fans, for this city, and for this badge. And they fought really hard.
This season was not perfect. Far from it. But this season also showed character, unity, fight, performance under pressure and a solid foundation we can build on.
We now know exactly what we need to fix. We know where we need to improve. We know what this club needs to become stronger. Pogoń Szczecin cant be built for one game, one window, or one season.
This was a very difficult season. But difficult seasons and times often create strong men, and strong foundations.