Inside Polish Sports

Balogoons

I am frankly surprised that Trump waited this long to become this World Cup's Jorge Videla 1978 analogue(Spoiler Alert: HE FAILED HAHA!). In our recording from last night before the two matches took place Irish Dave and I talk about the ludicrousness of the 48-team format, Ronaldo's farewell, the underdogs that emerged and how no one age remembers the backpass rule(Thank god!). Also, Iga goes into deeper dire straits after losing early at Wimbledon. Hubert Hurkacz retires in the fifth set after knocking out two seeds. Ola Mirosław retires in Kraków(I missed it because stupid me didn't check the weather). And Ania Lewandowska isn't a happy camper as she moves to Chicago. Kacper Prokopiak's fundraiser: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw

Kacper Prokopiak interview

In our first ever feature interview my guest is Kacper Prokopiak. The 20-year-old born in Warsaw and raised in Sanok and Oświęcim has fulfilled his Ice Hockey dreams by playing three seasons for Unia(including winning the Polish championship as a rookie), and now he has been given the chance of a lifetime thanks to being drafted by the Elmira Aviators(New York state) in the North American Hockey League. However, it is far from a cheap endeavour. The total cost of a year-long stay in the U.S. is at least 30,000 zł($8,000), so a crowdfunding campaign has been launched on Pomagam.pl to help Kacper make his dream of playing in America come true. As of the time of posting this episode 122 donors have put in a total of 8,921 zł. Kacper and I talk about how he fell in love with Hockey, the NHL stars he models himself on and the gratitude he feels for the help and support that he has received. Donate to Kacper via this link: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw

Robby 2 Hotty

Come on Lewy? Oh, baby don't you wanna go? Robert has finally fulfilled his dream of putting on the firesuit and finishing his career up in the most Polish corner of the MLS. Plus he will face BOTH Mueller and Messi in his first two games! If that is his last dance, we're already getting dizzy on that floor! Also, the heatwave has been the least of our first round Wimbledon problems with Maja only being denied by injury and Iga having a 21-minute-long game in her match. However, that is a blip of time compared to our Volleyball boys' first set against Argentina, which was a Buy 2 For The Price Of 1 deal(Offer ends August 2nd, Terms and Conditions Apply!). Fundraiser for Kacper Prokopiak's trip to play in the NAHL: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw

1986 World Cup Retrospective

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.............

1982 World Cup Retrospective

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.