This is part V of The Story Of Polonia Warsaw and we have just entered our first season in the Polish Division I (2nd tier). Last year we completed our first season in Liga II and gained promotion. If this is your first time reading the blog, make sure you visit the earlier parts also. You´ll find them here: https://tomikorkeamaki.wixsite.com/impactsub
Zaczynajmy!
It ain't about how hard you're hit, it's about how you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.
- Rocky Balboa
Well, you might already guess the situation we currently are in if we start the blog with a quote from a fictional boxer who liked to get hit hard in the head and hang in the ropes before making a magnificent comeback. We´ve been hit hard and I just hope that the boys can get the job done so we can run on the beach hugging each other next summer like this.
We were expected to fight for relegation this season and the situation we find ourselves in at the moment isn't that big of a surprise. More surprising is that with a little luck and better execution, we might be way higher on the table. We have had so many players underperforming and the fear of not being ready for this level has come into reality but at the end of the day, it´s my job to get the best out of this team.
So this is the situation we currently are in as we have just entered the winter break. We have 5 wins in 18 games and the scoring spree that we produced in Liga II, hasn´t quite transformed to this new level as we have only managed to score 18 goals. Our best goal scorer is winger Wojciech Fadecki with four goals. Scoring goals has been the major problem in this first half of the season. When we signed this guy in the summer, we hoped he could provide some help.
Meet Chilohem Onuoah. As we had gained promotion from Liga II, the new rules allowed us to use 2 non-EU players in the match day squad so we went for bargain hunting and scouted for Nigerian players. We found Onuoah, a former Hertha Berlin youngster who was a free agent and somehow we managed to snap him. What was more surprising than getting him to sign with us was the fact that he has a second nationality. His place of birth is not stated in his profile but since he is a Hertha Berlin youngster, his second nationality is German. So we saved a spot for the non-EU player but we have to leave the search for that possibility to the winter transfer window.
Unfortunately, he has had a rough start to his Polonia career as he is still without a goal scored, only 8 games played and injuries have been nagging him all season. He still gets regular call-ups to the youth team of Nigeria so the hope is still alive that he might produce goals at least at some point. He has to, right?
We made some tactical changes at the beginning of the season, removing the roaming playmaker role and switching it to centre midfield. We also removed shoot more often from our left-side inverted winger. Maybe we should have figured out that troubling times were ahead.
We started the season with a lucky 0-0 draw against Chrobry, a team that now sits in 2nd place in the division. I say lucky because they should have won us easily after having 65% of the possession. Just four days later, we hit a new low in this save as we were knocked out of the Polish FA Cup against Third Division side Kotwica. Our first win of the season came against fellow promotion side Radunia.
Wake me up when September ends feel like a new title for us as we managed to draw four games in a row and three of those were 0-0 draws. We just couldn´t find the final edge when creating chances. It was still an 8 game unbeaten run but it doesn´t do much in a tight division like this.
So we did as all the amateur managers do. We panicked. We tried to switch the system as we tried out formations with just a lone striker and attacking wingers. We even tried one with three strikers up front and extremely direct passing. It just messed up the team more. At least our board and fans didn´t create any extra pressure with high hopes.
There was also trouble with some of the younger promising players. We have a fairly old team but a couple of youngsters have already had big roles and it has drawn interest from a higher division. Early on in the season two of our young defenders came knocking on my door as I had turned down a transfer offers made about them that in my view was insulting.
As we all know, it came down to having "the talk" and those talks went so bad that the players expressed their willingness to see out the contract and leave for a free next summer. We were already short on money so we went fishing with Eryk Mikolajewski and eventually sold him for £200k to Stal Mielec. With Kacper Zarejko we didn´t have that kind of success as he was injured and currently remains on our roster. I don´t believe we have enough to turn his head around and we will lose him without receiving a penny. Both of them would have had huge roles in the future of Polonia. Disappointed to lose them like this.
During the miserable month of September, rumours were flying around that our chairman was ready to sell the club to local investors. I have never had a takeover in FM history and this ready would have put a new spin on the save. A couple of months later the rumours were denied in the press and still at this moment, the club is owned by Gregoire Nitot.
Winter break works in our favour at the moment. Now we have time to seriously evaluate every player again, evaluate our system, what works and what doesn´t and think through how we can get the best out of every player. I think we have enough to save ourselves from relegation. I just don´t want it to be a nail-biter. The First Division is so even that if we get good results in the spring, we have every chance even to push for a spot in the playoffs.
This is now a boxing match, round 12 in the Rocky movie. We are in the ropes, beaten with bloody heads. We have taken a hit. We just have to figure it how to keep moving forward.
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