Pogoń Szczecin

Pogoń Szczecin
Full name	Morski Klub Sportowy; Pogoń Szczecin
Nickname(s)	Portowcy (The Dockers); Duma Pomorza (Pride of Pomerania)
Founded	21 April 1948; 73 years ago
Ground	Stadion Miejski im. Floriana Krygiera
Capacity	18,027
Chairman	Jarosław Mroczek
Manager	Kosta Runjaić
League	PKO Ekstraklasa
2020–21	3rd of 16
Website	Club website
	Current season

MKS Pogoń Szczecin (Polish pronunciation: [ˌɛmkaˈɛs ˌpɔɡɔj̃ ˈʂtʂɛtɕin]) is a Polish professional football club, based in Szczecin, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, which plays in the Ekstraklasa, the top tier of the national football league system.

History[]

The club was founded by Poles from Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), who had been transferred west after the Soviet annexation of Poland's eastern territories in 1945. The founders of Pogoń Szczecin had previously been supporters of Pogoń Lwów and the colors of their new club reflect their old club. Polonia Bytom and Odra Opole were likewise founded or revived by the former inhabitants of Lwów.

The most popular sports organization in Szczecin was founded on 21 April 1948 as Klub Sportowy Sztorm. Its first departments were football and boxing, and the football team began playing in the local C-Class championship. In March 1949, several sports clubs in Szczecin (KS Sztorm, KS Cukrownik, KS Drukarz, Pocztowy KS) were merged into a large organization called Klub Sportowy Zwiazkowiec. The team of Zwiazkowiec joined local A-Class league, replacing Pocztowy KS. In November 1950, Zwiazkowiec was dissolved, and a new organization, Klub Sportowy Kolejarz Szczecin was formed. Its football team, supported by the Port of Szczecin, in 1953 was promoted to the newly created Interregional League (Liga Miedzywojewodzka), which covered the provinces of Szczecin, Zielona Góra and Poznań.

In autumn 1955, Kolejarz was renamed into Pogon Szczecin. The name and the hues of the club are a continuation of Pogon Lwow. In 1957, Pogon was runner up of the Interregional League, qualifying to the second division playoffs. After beating Flota Gdynia, Kujawiak Włocławek and Warta Gorzow, Pogon for the first time won promotion to the second level of Polish football system. In 1958, Pogon was the winner of Group North of the Second Division (37 points, goals 54–22, not a single game lost), winning promotion to the Ekstraklasa.

In its top level debut, Pogon lost at home to Gwardia Warszawa 0–1. In 1960, Pogon was relegated from the Ekstraklasa, to return there in 1962.

For most of the 1960s and 1970s, Pogon remained in the top Polish league, but remained an average team, without any successes. This changed in the early 1980s: in 1981, Pogon advanced to the final of the , to lose 0–1 to Legia Warszawa. In 1982, Pogon again made it to the Cup final, to lose 0–1 to Lech Poznań.

Ground: Stadion Miejski im. Floriana Krygiera

In 1984 Pogon, managed by Eugeniusz Ksol, for the first time in history was among top three teams in the Ekstraklasa, which meant that the team qualified for the UEFA Cup. In its European debut, Pogon faced 1. FC Köln, with such stars as Harald Schumacher, Pierre Littbarski and Klaus Allofs. In the first leg (September 19, 1984 in Cologne, Pogon lost 1–2. In the second leg (October 3), Polish team lost 0–1, after its players failed to score on two penalty kicks.

In 1987, Pogon was Polish runner-up. Managed by Leszek Jezierski, the team played offensively, scoring plenty of goals. With such players as Mariusz Kuras, Marek Ostrowski and Marek Lesniak, Pogon was only behind Górnik Zabrze. In the first round of UEFA Cup, Pogon faced Hellas Verona, with Thomas Berthold and Preben Elkjær. In the first leg (September 16, 1987), Pogon tied at home 1–1. Two weeks later, Polish team lost in Italy 1–3.

Pogoń in 2002 was on the brink of bankruptcy. As a result, fans created a new team on the basis of the reserves in the fourth division. However owner of Piotrcovia Piotrków Trybunalski Antoni Ptak decided to move the team and renamed the club MKS Pogoń Szczecin. The initial distrust was lost when the team performed well and used local players, however halfway through the 2005–06 season the team started underperforming and Ptak decided to replace almost the entire squad with only Brazilian nationals, making it the "most Brazilian team outside Brazil". Antoni Ptak also built a small training facility in Gut��w Mały, meaning the home games were played almost 500 km (311 mi) away from Szczecin. The experiment failed and in 2007 Antoni Ptak moved away from football, leaving the club to be rebuilt on the basis of the 4th division counterpart set up originally by the fans, which acted as the reserve team in the meantime.

The club was promoted to the Zachodnia (Western) group of the new II Liga (formerly the Third League) for the 2007–08 season. The club earned promotion to the Polish First League after finishing 2nd in Western Group of Polish Second League in 2008–09 season. Finally Pogoń returned to top division after finishing First League as runner-up in 2011–12 season.

Honours[]

Domestic[]

Ekstraklasa

Runners-up (2): 1986–87, 2000–01

Third place (2): 1983–84, 2020–21

Polish Cup

Runners-up (3): 1980–81, 1981–82, 2009–10

International[]

First Round of the 1984–85 UEFA Cup and the 1987–88 UEFA Cup
Qualifying Round of the 2001–02 UEFA Cup
Second Round of the 2005 UEFA Intertoto Cup

Youth Team[]

Polish U-19 Champion:

1986

Polish U-19 Runner Up:

1965, 2016

Polish U-19 Bronze Medal:

1960, 2008, 2012, 2014

Polish U-17 Bronze Medal:

2002

Pogoń Szczecin in European football[]

Results[]

Season	Competition	Round	Opponent	Home	Away	Aggregate
1965–66	Intertoto Cup	GR	Chemie Leipzig	1–3	0–1	4th
			Slovnaft Bratislava	2–3	0–4
			NK Zagreb	3–0	0–2
1976	Intertoto Cup	GR	Östers IF	0–1	0–1	3rd
			Belenenses	2–2	0–2
			Næstved	3–0	1–1
1977	Intertoto Cup	GR	Sturm Graz	1–0	0–0	1st
			KB	2–2	1–1
			Chênois	6–1	1–0
1982	Intertoto Cup	GR	Brage	1–0	0–2	2nd
			Sparta Prague	2–0	0–1
			Wiener Sport-Club	3–3	4–3
1983	Intertoto Cup	GR	Werder Bremen	2–1	0–4	1st
			Malmö FF	2–0	1–2
			St. Gallen	1–1	3–3
1984–85	UEFA Cup	1R	FC Köln	0–1	1–2	1–3
1987	Intertoto Cup	GR	Hammarby	3–0	3–2	1st
			La Chaux-de-Fonds	6–3	4–0
			Magdeburg	3–1	1–2
1987–88	UEFA Cup	1R	Hellas Verona	1–1	1–3	2–4
1988	Intertoto Cup	GR	Grasshopper Club	0–0	0–1	3rd
			Östers IF	2–0	0–0
			Pécsi MFC	0–0	1–3
1993	Intertoto Cup	GR	Lausanne-Sport	0–4		4th
			IFK Norrköping		1–4
			Copenhagen	4–1
			Austria Wien		0–2
1995	UEFA Intertoto Cup	GR	Cannes	1–2		5th
			Farul Constanța		1–2
			Dnepr Mogilev	3–3
			Bečej		1–2
2001–02	UEFA Cup	QR	Fylkir	1–1	1–2	2–3
2005	UEFA Intertoto Cup	1R	Tiligul Tiraspol	6–2	3–0	9–2
2005	UEFA Intertoto Cup	2R	Sigma Olomouc	0–0	0–1	0–1
2021–22	UEFA Europa Conference League	2QR	Osijek	0–0	0–1	0–1

Players[]

Current squad[]

As of 21 August 2021^[1]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
1	GK	CRO	Dante Stipica
2	DF	POL	Jakub Bartkowski
6	DF	POL	Bartłomiej Mruk
7	MF	POL	Rafał Kurzawa
8	MF	POL	Damian Dąbrowski
9	FW	POL	Piotr Parzyszek (on loan from Frosinone)
10	FW	SVN	Luka Zahović
11	MF	POL	Kamil Grosicki
13	DF	GRE	Konstantinos Triantafyllopoulos
14	MF	POL	Kamil Drygas
15	DF	POL	Hubert Matynia
16	MF	FIN	Santeri Hostikka
17	FW	POL	Mariusz Fornalczyk
18	MF	POL	Michał Kucharczyk
20	MF	AUT	Alexander Gorgon
22	DF	AUT	David Stec
23	DF	AUT	Benedikt Zech
25	FW	SWE	Paweł Cibicki


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
26	GK	POL	Jakub Bursztyn
27	MF	POL	Sebastian Kowalczyk
28	MF	POR	Tomás Podstawski
33	DF	POL	Mariusz Malec
41	DF	POL	Paweł Stolarski
55	DF	POL	Igor Łasicki
61	MF	POL	Kacper Smolinski
63	FW	POL	Hubert Turski
64	MF	POL	Kacper Kozłowski
71	MF	POL	Marcel Wędrychowski
75	DF	POL	Filip Balcewicz
80	GK	POL	Dariusz Krzysztofek
81	GK	POL	Marcel Mendes-Dudzinski
97	DF	POR	Luís Mata
99	MF	POL	Mateusz Łęgowski

Out on loan[]