Ekstraklasa Round 18 Review

Round 18 is officially over, and the Polish Ekstraklasa is under way. The weekend featured two big derbies in Polish football, a 0-0 match between Polonia Warsaw and Legia Warsaw, and a 1-0 victory for Gornik Zabrze over Ruch Chorzow. A confident Lech Poznan team, over came a heart breaking end to their UEFA Cup run last Thursday after a 2-1 loss to Udinese, with a 3-2 victory over GKS Belchatow on Sunday. Poznan now sit in first place, 2-points clear of their closest competitor, Legia Warsaw. Here’s some of the best, and worst, from around the Ekstraklasa from the weekend.

—-Round 18 Ekstraklasa Statistics—-

Goals scored: 15

Yellow cards: 16

Red cards: 4

—-Ekstraklasa Team of the Week—-

——————————————- Kasprzik ————————————-

——- Skerla ———— Banas ——————– Fojut —————– Krol—-

—— Wrobel ———- Lewandowski ———– Stilic ———— Tralka ——–

—————————- Frankowski ———– Slusarski ————————

—-Goalie—-

Grzegorz Kasprzik (Piast Gliwice) Made several big saves to keep Piast in the game. The goal was as close to unstoppable as they come.

—-Defense—-

Andrius Skerla (Jagiellonia Bialystok) Dominant preformance in 3-0 win.

Adam Banas (Gornik Zabrze) Great on defense and scored game’s only goal, a beauty from a free kick.

Jaroslaw Fojut (Slask Wroclaw) Solid game and scored a very nice goal off a header.

Krzysztof Krol (Jagiellonia Bailystok) Great in the back and added an assist on their 3rd goal. Made great runs all game long and was almost never beat in any 1 on 1 battles.

—-Midfield—-

Lukasz Tralka (Polonia Warsaw) Biggest threat in 0-0 game vs. Legia. Was unlucky several times but kept Legia on their toes.

Robert Lewandowski (Lech Poznan) A threat all game long and scored game winning goal in the 90th minute.

Stemir Stilic (Lech Poznan) Two goals in 3-2 win over GKS Belchatow.

Tomasz Wrobel (GKS Belchatow) Gave Lech problems all night long. Also added a assist on Belchatow’s first goal.

—-Forwards—-

Tomasz Frankowski (Jagiellonia Bialystok) Two goals in a 3-0 win over Arka in the first half. And he nearly missed a few other chances too. He was everywhere.

Bartosz Slusarski (Cracovia Krakow) Scored the loan goal and it was a beauty.  Had many other chances but was just wide or robbed by the Piast keeper Kasprzik.

—- The good, the bad, the ugly!—-

The good- The return of Tomasz Frankowski to the Polish Ekstraklasa. Frankowski hasn’t played in Poland since 2005, and most recently played in the United States for the Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer. Frankowski’s debut for Jagiellonia was like a Hollywood script. Franek scored two first half goals and was all over the place giving Arka problems. Welcome back!

The bad- Tempers are always high when Ruch Chorzow plays Gornik Zabrze, and Saturday was no exception. Fights were the big story in Chorzow and there was reports of many fights between Chorzow fans with Gornik fans and Chorzow fans with police. It’s too bad, 42,000 fans had to witness it and the match was the highlight of the week for Poland and once again violence takes over the front pages in the Slask region.

The ugly- Mid table club Polonia Bytom played as perfect as they could to keep defending champion Wisla Krakow off the scoreboard. Up 1-0, Bytom played desperate despite being outplayed, but Krakow just couldn’t score… until the 72nd minute. Polonia defenders Lukas Killar and Jacek Broniewicz made a very brutal mistake. Both players thought the other guy would go after the ball, and as a result, nobody got it, except Wisla striker Rafal Boguski who scored to tie up the game. The game ended 1-1 and the points could be very costly for Bytom. It would have been a huge upset if it wasn’t for the bonehead defending.

—-Goal of the week—-

Maciej Kowalczyk 76th minute strike for Lechia Gdansk gets my vote for best goal of the weekend. He beat several Slask Wroclaw defenders and nailed a beauty into the left corner of the net. Great strike. The game ended 1-1 and Kowalczyk’s strike gave Gdansk a much needed point.