Inside Polish Sports

In the fourth and final part of the retro World Cup lookback I'll talk about the whimper of the golden era that melted in the Mexican heat 40 years ago this month. The second Antoni Piechniczek term was meant to be a perfect mix of the '82 heroes with the new guard headed by teen idol Dariusz Dziekanowski. However only Włodzimierz Smolarek got on the score sheet in four matches, whilst we conceded a hat trick to hobby podcaster Gary Lineker and had more chances than supermarket items against Brazil.

Whilst the exact quote from Piechnieczek in the post match interview is often misinterpreted, the context is clear: We should've returned to the big stage at some point during the 90's. But Polish Football was already falling behind times and in a sense, we are still catching up.............

In Part 3 of our World Cup flashback, we'll look at the darkest time in post-war Polish history. On December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski's army declared war on its own people and this meant that the national team couldn't play any friendlies leading up to the World Cup finals in Spain. The first 235 minutes against Italy, Cameroon and Peru gave us no goals and no reason to hope. But then Zbigniew Boniek propelled his teammates and introduced himself as a world-class player, especially with a sublime hat-trick against Belgium which even stunned Pele.

Who the hell needs the World Cup anyway! Polish Sports were doing just fine last weekend with Jeremy Sochan becoming our first ever NBA Champion(of course it matters that he won it on the court and not on a technicality due to playing for the Spurs earlier this season!). Kamil Majchrzak won his first ATP singles title. Kuba Śmiechowski won the LMP2 class at Le Mans for the third time in 4 years. Radosław Piesiewicz was finally given the Olympic committee handbag and Lewy is almost there with his Chicago Fire move, but of course doesn't need a meeting with fans at..............1:30 am?!

1982 World Cup retrospective coming up tomorrow night!

On May 16th Maja Chwalińska left her twenty-five-square-meter flat in Bielsko-Biała simply wanting to survive in Paris and make the French Open main draw. Her manager simply wanted her to make the second or even third round. 23 days later she returned to Poland a national hero and having not just survived and conquered the courts and her opponents to forever write her script into Tennis and Polish sporting histories.

Her runner-up finish is not just her personal triumph, but of all who have supported her and also a notice to us all that we can't let her down twice after her depression struggles. Also I'll talk about how it should be a rallying cry for us to finally support our individual talents mentally and not just physically.

In Part 2 of our World Cup retrospective we will take a deeper look on what could've been a golden three-headed hydra of Boniek, Deyna and Lubański destroying everyone in 1978. Instead Jacek Gmoch wanted to sacrifice Pan Włodek in his one and only tournament for the young Boniek which then lead to a fateful situation when Boniek suggested to Deyna that he should take the penalty against Argentina.

My heart breaks thinking about just how different history would've been then................