Legia and Lech are the favorites of Lotto Ekstraklasa, but in this league everyone can win

Already Friday, hardened fanatics of the first league will stop counting the days between seasons. The counter will be on 61 days. With the new edition of the games, they will salute the match between Copper Legnica and Pogoń Szczecin.

The Benjamin will do everything to make Legnica 's adventure with the first league lasting more than a year. The amplifiers are quite interesting. The CV of Anton Kanibołocki is impressive (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Shakhtar Donetsk, Karabakh Agdam), but everywhere he was mainly reserved.

However, he managed to appear in the Champions League against PSG. Few guards in the first division can boast of defending the arrows of Zlatan Ibrahimović. The team was also joined by two representatives from Estonia, Artur Pikk and globe trotter Henrik Ojamaa, known for his performances at Legia. A similar objective is in front of the second of the Benjamins, Zagłębie Sosnowiec. The new best-known face of this team will be Piotr Polczak returning to the first division after a year in Romanian Astra Giurgiu.

According to the bookmakers (and not only), the candidates for the champion must be looked elsewhere. You can win 200 and 500 PLN 1 for the title of Miedź and Zagłębie, the favorites being Legia (1.8) and Lech (4.5).

– I think Lech and Jagiellonia will play the title with us first. Although there will definitely be a team that will be a black horse of the competition and will fight with the strongest. This is so every year, we recently saw Górnik in this role – underlines the guardian of Legia Arkadiusz Malarz. – Our goals do not change, it's the championship and the Polish Cup. But the main dish is to be the Champions League. We will do everything to find the football elite – he adds.

Legionaries have already beaten the first of four obstacles on the way to the Champions League (4-0 over the entire city of Cork). The next will be the Slovak Spartak Trnava. Even if they fall in one of the upcoming rounds, they will still have a chance to play the group stage of the Europa League. Which means the game every three days almost until the end of the year.

To successfully fight on three fronts, Dean Klafurić has a large cadre of 30 people. We should buy a lot of reinforcements for about 450 000 euro from Wisła Kraków the king of the shooters of the previous season Lotto Ekstraklasa Carlitos and José Kanté (recently Wisła Płock). Legia also benefited from the pre-emptive right of Mateusz Wieteska, 21, who shone in Zabrze the previous season. Loans returned as talented Dominik Nagy (Ferencváros) and Sandro Kulenović (Juventus). None of the important players have left the team yet.

We will see how they will be in the league. For the moment, Kante and Carlitos scored after the goal in Cork's rematch on Tuesday. The team, however, does not impress. As the players and the coach say – they are still learning a new 3-5-2 setting. It was enough for the Irish not to have the Super Cup at the moment. Last Saturday, Arka beat them in Łazienkowska 3: 2. The legionaries will have a chance to re-educate next Saturday, with Zagłębie Lubin.

Among Legia 's championship rivals, Pedro Tiby' s transfer makes the biggest impression, for which Lech paid a total of about one million euros. The 29-year-old Portuguese in the home league (recently Sporting Braga) has played more than a hundred games, he also played in the La Liga backyard in Real Valladolid. Tomasz Cywka from Wisła Kraków signed the contract with Kolejorz.

Jagiellonia put forth proven names, brought Grzegorz Sandomierski (Cracovia), king of the shooters of the 1st league of Mateusz Machaj and Lukas Klemenza standing there. Slovakian 19-year-old Martin Adamec also came to the club.

Interesting moves have also been made by other clubs. Silesia brought Wojciech Gola, who did a good job in the Netherlands. Piotr Parzyszek (Piast Gliwice) chose a similar direction. After five years, Ricardinho returned to Poland, and more specifically to Wisła Płock, which was successful in Moldova and later in Serbia and Russia.

With reinforcements or without, the league will always be interesting. The words "here everyone can win with everyone" are nowhere as real as in the top league.

Tomasz Dębek

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Lotto Ekstraklasa – 1st round:

Friday 20/07: Miedź Legnica – Pogoń Szczecin (6 pm, broadcast Eurosport 2), Jagiellonia Bialystok – Lechia Gdańsk (8.30 pm, Canal + Sport); Saturday 21.07: Śląsk Wrocław – Kraków (15.30, nSport +), Wisła Kraków – Arka Gdynia (18th, Canal + Sport), Legia Warsaw – Zagłębie Lubin (20.30, Canal + Sport); Sunday 22.07: Górnik Zabrze – Korona Kielce (15.30, Canal + Sport), Wisła Płock – Lech Poznań (18th, Canal +); Monday, July 23: Zagłębie Sosnowiec – Piast Gliwice (18th, Eurosport 1).

Arkadiusz Malarz: We do not think about the next qualifying rounds for the Champions League. It is to obtain Cork City