Inside Polish Sports

Our Footballing Batwoman Ewa Pajor has finally shaken off her doubts and ghosts and has conquered the Gotham Clock Tower of the Women's Champions League after five previous final losses. Even though Barca Feminina has two women who won the Ballon d'Or each of the previous five years(Putellas and Bonmati), Ewa's two goals and assist in the 4-0 drubbing of Lyon on Saturday pretty much assures her spot on the podium of this year's vote. If only the national team doesn't let her down and she carries them to next year's World Cup in Brazil..........!

Also, Lukas Podolski retires as player and debuts as owner of UCL qualifiers Górnik Zabrze, Matty Cash wins the Europa League with Aston Villa, Lewy is courted from both Chicago and Saudi and why the French Open should relent and give the players(especially losers in earlier rounds) a bigger slice of the revenue share.

There is still something is our eyes after Lewy's farewell to Camp Nou on Sunday Night. It is surreal that his four seasons there have gone in a blink of a eye, almost as sureal as the fact itself that a Pole was the main star of the world's most famous and beloved club. Knowing Robert he doesn't need to take the sultan's ransom (90 million Euro a year!) to sign with Al-Hilal, but reports say that Chicago Fire might've beaten them with the offer.

In the Ekstraklasa Legia somehow might end in the European places, Lech celebrates its 10th title and the final day might just become our equivalent of eye porn! Also, Ewa Pajor can win the treble with the Barca Women and Iga breaks her semifinal duck after......10 months?!

Robert Lewandowski's achievements by now are so expected that we seem to forget how extraordinary they are. With Barca clinching the LaLiga, he has now won FOURTEEN domestic league titles in just eighteen top flight seasons. He and Wojciech Szczęsny acted accordingly during the bus parade, including some off-cut Jan Tomaszewski impressions!

Also, Iga re-finds her mojo in Rome, Wisła celebrates its promotion with manager Mariusz Jop repelling his own goal sins, Wieczysta might not get promoted at all as owner wants to work with Wisła instead, Tymek Kucharczyk wins at Indy and my autopsy all the reasons why our Hockey boys will spend another year in the second tier purgatory.

Piotr Zieliński set off a Scudetto party at San Siro as his goal helped Inter win their 21st Italian title and Zielu's second after winning it with Napoli three years ago. Meanwhile, in Porto Kiwior, Bednarek and Pietuszewski celebrated their own domestic crown. When did I hear that before: Three Polish guys in one club, hmmmmmmmmmmm........?

Also, Wisła are all but promoted, Lech are all but champions, Ewa Pajor is all but a CL winner with Barca, Jeremy Sochan is all but sitting on the Knicks bench, and the Polish Luge head coach was all but fired through..........a Facebook job advert.

Episode introduced by the one and only New York Islanders legend Mariusz Czerkawski, whom I met at the Division I A World Championships in Sosnowiec on Sunday! Full review of that tournament in next week's episode.

On this special retrospective, we will talk about an event unsung outside of the Polish borders, but one that forever changed us as a sporting nation. In May 1953, two months after Poland was forced to mourn its chief abuser Stalin, Feliks "Papa" Stamm coached our amateur boxers to nine European Championship medals at Warsaw's Gwardia Hall.

Five of those medals were gold, and three came by beating the Ruskis in the finals. This is the story of how Stamm assembled his team of warriors and how even family tragedy and mortal disease could not stop us from finally imposing our will upon the enemy, even if only with fists instead of tanks.