All you need to know about the Polish domestic game

Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland squad for Wednesday’s friendly against Poland in the Aviva Stadium contains nine former League of Ireland players. Unsurprisingly, however, there are no players in the squad currently playing in Ireland. Similarly, the Polish squad has no players currently playing in their domestic league, though a squad drawn from Polish clubs defeated a Romanian team 4-1 in Malaga on Saturday night.

Last summer five of Poland’s Euro 2012 squad were with Polish clubs at the time of the tournament. The squad Waldemar Fornalik brings to Dublin today includes players plying their trade in major leagues across Europe: Spain, England, Germany, Holland, Russia and France.

It is over five years since a League of Ireland player last lined out for Ireland on the infamous tour of the US under Steve Staunton in 2007 (name them below for a Brucie bonus – ed). Seven years ago, meanwhile, Jason Byrne was capped for the second and final time against Chile. Two years previously Byrne, who is second in the all-time list of scorers in the League of Ireland, earned his first cap in a game in Poland. He was a very late second half substitute in a thoroughly forgettable friendly game when Brian Kerr was manager.

Only a couple of hundred Ireland fans travelled to Bydgoszcz for the 0-0 draw but there was a sizeable media presence including journalists from the UK. They travelled in expectation of Roy Keane’s return for Ireland following Saipan and the 2002 World Cup. However Keane picked up an injury in training and returned to Manchester without travelling to Poland.

During the second half of that game the Polish riot police were deployed, not due to any incident involving Irish fans, but to separate rival Polish fans in the ground. Poland has a certain reputation of football hooliganism. Legia Warsaw were banned from UEFA competitions in 2007 after an Intertoto Cup game was abandoned in Lithuania due to the rioting of their fans. Derby games in Krakow between Cracovia and Wisla Krakow require a massive security presence. The 2011 Polish Cup final in Bydgoszcz saw police fire rubber bullets to try and quell trouble that flared with Legia Warsaw fans after their penalty shootout victory over Lech Poznan. Banning orders are used to prevent known trouble makers from attending games.

In the run up to Euro 2012, there was a lot of media coverage about hooliganism and there was some trouble in Poland. Polish and Russian fans clashed in Warsaw ahead of their group game on June 12. With the game taking place on Russia Day in the Polish national stadium on the banks of the Vistula River, from where the Soviet army watched their German counterparts raze Warsaw in 1945, meant tension was always going to be high at that game. The massive ‘This is Russia’ banner unfurled by the Russian fans at the match didn’t help either.  Twenty four people were injured and 184 arrested (157 of them Polish) in the disturbances that day.

Irish fans saw riot police deployed in the centre of Poznan ahead of their game with Croatia during the Euros - memorable for the photo of two Irish fans standing Father Ted style in front of a bank of riot police with ‘Down with this sort of thing’ and ‘Careful now’ signs!

Looking at the respective leagues, the Polish league is stronger that the Airtricity League. Overall the Polish League, currently on their winter break until 24 February, is ranked 20th by UEFA, 16 places higher than Ireland. The Ekstraklasa’s average attendance this season is 8,300, compared with 8,800 last year or averages of 2,000 or so in the Airtricity League. However derby games in Poland can attract over 40,000 fans. The champions Slask average crowds of 18,000.

In European club competition it wasn’t a successful season in 2012 for either league. Slask Wroclaw were eliminated from the Champions League in the third qualifying round and were subsequently knocked out, along with Legia Warsaw, in the Europa League Playoff round. Irish clubs fared worse though as Shamrock Rovers, Sligo Rovers and Bohemians were all eliminated at the very first hurdle in Champions League and Europa League qualifiers – only St. Pat’s managed to progress before elimination in the third qualifying round).

When the teams last played in Croke Park in 2008, the Polish fans lit up GAA headquarters with flares celebrating their 3-2 win. Last week, the head of the Polish football federation Michal Boniek announced he is looking to have the ban on flares that was introduced domestically in 2009 to be overturned so that they could be used at the end of domestic games. His counterpart John Delaney will be hoping none are let off next week as the FAI won’t want any UEFA fine arriving in the post.