This club was not supposed to exist. A week before the start of the new season, Betclic 2. Liga had – literally – two players plus local youth on contracts. There was also no coach. There was also no decision on whether Wisła would participate in the games, and Lech’s reserves, relegated to the fourth tier last season, were waiting for a signal in this matter. If the team from Puławy withdrew from the league, its place would be taken by the second team of Kolejorz. Wisła received phone calls from Poznań almost every day, the answer was always the same: the fight continues.
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This fight was about collecting several hundred thousand złoty, which would secure the coming months. The decisive day came on Tuesday, July 16, four days before the first round match with Zagłębie Lubin reserves scheduled for Saturday. It was then that the decision was made that Wisła would take part in the games.
A team was quickly created, with 32-year-old coach Maciej Tokarczyk, who had previously worked with the youth teams of Piast Gliwice and for the last five years with Stal Rzeszów, being brought in from the 4th league at Stal Łańcut.
A little over a month has passed since then. The result? Out of five matches played, Puławy drew one and won the last two: as much as 5:1 in the match with the second Zagłębie postponed from the first round (in this way Wisła got an additional week to complete the squad), and in the previous series of games 3:2 with Olimpia Elbląg.
– I knew perfectly well what kind of club I was coming to. No one before me embellished the situation – Tokarczyk tells “Przegląd Sportowy”. He received the offer from Wisła just a few weeks after he arrived at Łańcut. The prospect of working at the central level, even in a club with gigantic problems, turned out to be too tempting to turn down. In Puławy, of course, there was no talk of a preparatory period, let alone a training camp. You had to enter the league straight away. – Me, the staff, the players – we approach it with passion. There is no discontent, we just act and believe in ourselves – adds the coach.
Azoty Group’s loss
Where did Wisła’s problems come from? The source is the financial problems of Grupa Azoty Puławy, which recorded a loss of over half a billion zlotys in 2023. A year earlier, it had a profit of almost 300 million. Azoty was brought down by high prices of gas necessary for the production of fertilizers, market instability after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, competition from Asia and Africa. Management errors were also pointed out, as well as the lack of reaction to the first signs that financial results were plummeting. As a result, in the spring of this year, Grupa Azoty began to withdraw from sports sponsorship. First, it announced that it would no longer support the volleyball teams of Chemik Police and ZAKS Kędzierzyn Koźle.
Wisła Puławy players during the match against Hutnik Kraków. The Grupa Azoty advertisement is no longer displayed on their shirts (Photo: MICHAL PLASZYK / 400mm.pl / NEWSPIX.PL / newspix.pl)
Then it did the same to the handball players from KS Azoty Puławy. Finally, a statement was issued that at the end of June the company would cut all its sponsorship expenses, including football in Puławy. For Wisła, it sounded like a death sentence. After all, it was almost a company club, Grupa Azoty had been its strategic sponsor for years, providing 3–4 million PLN each season. For Wisła, celebrating its 100th birthday last year, this was enough to function stably at the second league level.
In the spring, it ended, and a desperate search for a new source of financing began. Help from the city? None. As we hear, the Puławy authorities are interested in everything, but certainly not in supporting sports. It was difficult to talk to local businesses, because the poor condition of Grupa Azoty is reflected in the entire city. In the depopulating Puławy, forty-something thousand people live, the chemical concern and its subsidiaries employ almost four thousand people, so about one tenth of the residents are connected with Azoty. If things are bad there, things are bad in the city too.
A fast-spreading rumor appeared that the owner of Motor, Zbigniew Jakubas, was ready to administer an IV drip to the club. We learned, however, that it was not true, and it raised eyebrows in Lublin.
The match that shook the league
Wisła didn’t throw in the towel, because it would probably mean the end of football in Puławy. If the club didn’t join the second league, it would be relegated to the fourth league, but there would be no money to play there either. The district league would be left, and even that could be a problem. On July 16, it was finally calculated that there was enough money in the club’s coffers to start in the league. The plan of action was prepared, but it was waiting hidden in a drawer. Then it was started to be implemented. In this way, they reached out to the previously chosen coach Tokarczyk, and they started to bring in new players. They are not complete amateurs, but as we hear, if a footballer has two children, thanks to the 800 plus, they can double their monthly income.
Wisła has brought players who have had problems playing elsewhere or who have remained free agents. This is how Marcel Zylla, a 24-year-old former youth international, who was still in the top league Śląsk Wrocław in the autumn of last season and played in two matches, arrived in Puławy. “We knew that he would defend himself in terms of his sporting skills. We thought that he might need some time, because he was without a club in the spring. It turned out that he is able to play every three days for 90 minutes. He brings a lot of quality to our team,” says Tokarczyk.
The test of Wisła’s sporting abilities was to be the match of the 2nd round with the ŁKS reserves. In Puławy, they also wondered whether to postpone this match, because it was going to be a disaster. But it was Tokarczyk who said: we’re playing. “We’ll treat it as an opportunity and show character,” he announced. And so he and his team did. The match ended in a goalless draw. Then there was a 1:2 home defeat to KKS Kalisz. At the beginning of August, Wisła had a match in the preliminary round of the Polish Cup with Chojniczanka. The club came up with the idea of skipping it. This would not involve any penalties from the Polish Football Association, and would save money on away games.
Wisła Pulawy coach Maciej Tokarczyk (Photo: Anna Langowska / 058sport.pl / NEWSPIX.PL / newspix.pl)
– The players said to go – says the Wisła coach. And they travelled 500 km one way by coach, played the match and returned in the morning. – I am glad that the players took the initiative, it also builds the team. We had a good match in Chojnice. We equalised from 0:2. We conceded the goal that decided the 2:3 defeat from a penalty. With a bit of luck, maybe a bit more concentration, the result would have been better – says Tokarczyk.
After the cup match in Chojnice, Wisła lost 0:1 to Hutnik in Kraków and then came the one that shook Betclic 2nd League – the aforementioned 5:1 victory over Zagłębie Lubin, although the Puławy team could have easily scored three more goals. – Everyone knows what the situation is here. None of the players complain, the so-called team spirit is very strong. The most important thing is that football is not over in the over-a-hundred-year-old club – we hear in Puławy.
Puławy like Liberec and Prague?
A coach going to the central level, but to a club on the edge – does that make sense? A recent example from the Czech Republic shows that it certainly does. Today, Jindřich Trpišovsky, who has been working at Slavia Prague since 2017, is considered the best Czech coach. In 2015, he worked at second-division Viktoria Žižkov. The problems there were so big that the club did not have the money to rent a training pitch. So the players gritted their teeth and practiced among the trees in the city park. And they played quite well. So much so that the information about it reached the then sports director of Slovan Liberec Jan Nezmarwho would come to Prague and watch training sessions in the park through his car window. Shortly afterwards, he hired Trpišovský in Liberec, then took him with him to Slavia.
