No Polish club has had such an interesting sparring partner in winter as … a first league. Widzew Łódź faced Union Berlin today. There is no need to convince anyone about the class of this rival – this is the fourth team of the Bundesliga (a game sensation), which after a very successful previous season (Union was to defend itself against relegation and reached the Conference League) jumped to an even higher level. Nobody expected miracles from Widzew. It even seemed that the inhabitants of Łódź were going for a certain beheading. Meanwhile, we were very pleasantly surprised, because the Lodz team survived, as evidenced by the result – 0: 0!
Union – Widzew. How did this sparring come about?
On Monday morning, everyone in Widzew lived with transfers and scheduled sparrings with KKS Kalisz and Ruch Chorzów. Until Union unexpectedly offered to play a sparring. The Germans were originally supposed to face Erzgebirge Aue, but the team from the 2nd Bundesliga refused at the last minute, explaining that they had staff problems. The club from Stara Leśniczówka had to quickly find another candidate, especially since the match was planned with about a thousand fans.
So it fell on Widzew. – My friend Sebastian Podsiadły is an analyst and assistant to coach Urs Fischer. We met a few years ago when he was working in Kaiserslautern, we often exchange views. On Monday after 12 o’clock I got a question from him if we wanted to play a control match. I was a bit surprised. We are buttoning up transfers, and are you telling me about your sparring with Union ?! But the proposal was the most serious and one can only be glad that young Poles support each other – Łukasz Stupka, sports director of Widzew tells us.
In order to face the Bundesliga team, they had to change the entire microcycle in Łódź. Originally, the weekend matches with KKS Kalisz and Ruch Chorzów were to take place, and to prepare for them, the team was to be experimentally divided into two groups. – Immediately, as the entire sports division, we made the decision to play the match. We had to change our microcycle and cancel the match against KKS Kalisz. But when there is an opportunity to play with the Bundesliga team, it is not refused. No one had such a strong sparring partner this winter. Thanks are also due to the management board and the owner who found additional funds for this trip – emphasizes Łukasz Stupka.
Logistically, it was a challenge because … the whole team had to get on the coach on the second day (on Tuesday) and go to Berlin. Union itself helped to organize the trip, as it covered the travel costs, so Widzew only paid for the hotel. It was decided that such an opportunity could not be missed, especially since Widzew received an assurance that it would not be a youth test, and that a few players of the starting suit would play. And rightly so, because most of the players from Łódź have never faced a rival of this class, and only Lech Poznań has a comparable sparring partner this winter. will face Hertha Berlin.
So the memories of Widzew fans could be revived. In the 1980s, the inhabitants of Łódź often traveled across the western border, where they took part in indoor tournaments. In the past, they also faced Union itself, and today is … the eighteenth anniversary of that match.
How did Widzew fare?
Union actually fielded the players from the front line. In the starting eleven there were six players who lapped Borussia Mönchengladbach away on Saturday (Rönnow, Baumgartl, Knoche, Prömel, Oczipka, Öztunali). Of course, Paweł Wszołek, who was missing, was not in the frame loan to Legia Warsaw is finalized. Widzew – which is natural – came out in an optimal combination (Daniel Tanżyna, who reported the indisposition, was missing), but in the second half, Janusz Niedźwiedź also gave the young players a chance to play.
How did Widzew play?
Extremely brave.
And I think this word best reflects the attitude of a first-tier driver. He was brave. Extremely brave. Due to the place where the match was played, there would probably be a few historical comparisons to the scale of the defense to which the spectators were pushed. And there is no point in describing each of the Union actions minute by minute, because… there were simply too many of them. The Germans had over 70% of the ball possession. In the first half, they only dominated, but in the second they locked Widzew in the hockey castle for 45 minutes and approached the topic of scoring a goal with great determination. They had Endo, Ujah and Voglsammer after a few occasions.
But what? 0: 0!
Widzew’s defense should be highly praised, because the fact that the leading Bundesliga club would create opportunities for itself was obvious. But we cannot say “oh, it must be a sure goal”, for which we should praise not only the defenders, but also Jakub Wrąbl (some great interventions, especially when he had to shorten the angle) and Konrad Reszka (the substitute entered for half an hour of the greatest siege, but it did not break on the robot).
What else did we like about Widzew? Well, he was very good at this sparring. I mean – no game for the score, we want to play football. The Polish team had a big problem with moving the ball from their own defense to the midfield, but at least they tried. High pressing the Union? Avoiding it was a big challenge, as the Berliners put it on in an incomparably better way than the first-tier players, but there was no knocking out of the ball. Widzew always tried to exit with short passes. It made mistakes, it’s obvious, but it was not a wall-up, smash-and-survive game, but a brave attempt to take the gauntlet.
The Germans especially tried to enter the penalty area with side sectors, they threatened several times on straight beaten solid fragments, they even received shots of despair from a distance. If it ended 3: 0, none of the Polish team would have the right to complain about injustice. The Bundesliga strikers, however, lacked a cool head in key situations.
Widzew, in turn, created two occasions. The first one after the throw-in, when Marek Hanousek hit from seventeen meters (Rönnow defended), the second after a counterattack, when Przemysław Kita failed to defeat the goalkeeper from an acute angle. Widzew players saw how much they are missing from the best. But most of all, they found out that even with the best you can achieve great results. And this is probably the greatest value of this sparring. Because if the inhabitants of Łódź are able to face the revelations of the Bundesliga, what can stop them on their way to Ekstraklasa?
Union Berlin 0: 0 Widzew Lodz
Lineups:
Union Berlin: Frederik Rönnow (46′ Jakob Busk) – Rick Van Drongelen (46′ Maximilian Somnitz), Julian Ryerson, Levin Öztunali (46′ Sheraldo Becker), Anthony Ujah, Kevin Behrens (46′ Andreas Voglsammer), Keita Endo (63′ Suleiman Abdullahi ), Bastian Oczipka (63′ Christopher Trimmel), Grischa Prömel (68′ Laurenz Dehl), Timo Baumgartl (46′ Paul Jaeckel), Robin Knoche
Widzew Lodz: Jakub Wrąbel (66 ‘Konrad Reszka) – Krystian Nowak, Karol Danielak (46’ Kristoffer Normann Hansen), Bartosz Guzdek (46 ‘Mattia Montini, 88’ Kamil Machałek), Dominik Kun (88 ‘Daniel Chwałowski), Paweł Zieliński (88’ Dawid Owczarek), Marek Hanousek, Adam Dębiński (46 ‘Przemysław Kita), Fabio Nunes (46’ Radosław Gołębiowski), Patryk Stępiński, Daniel Villanueva (46 ‘Kacper Karasek, 74’ Martin Kreuzriegler).
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