Jagiellonia coach torn by his friend’s drama.

Give us a break, we want to celebrate! – “complained” with a smile on his face Taras Romanczuk, captain of the champion Jagiellonia Białystok, who called himself “one of the happiest people in Poland”. – It’s such an amazing feeling… – sighed Jaga’s coach Adrian Siemieniec. But he, in turn, was not indifferent to the drama of his friend Dawid Szulczek from Warta Poznań, who, in the shadow of the success of the team from Białystok, experienced relegation from the top league.

Jagiellonia is the Polish champion 2023/24, Białystok is the happiest city in Poland. After Saturday’s victory over Warta Poznań 3-0, “Pride of Podlasie” won the first championship in the club’s history. But while the joy of the players and fans was unbridled on the stadium pitch, it was exceptionally calm at the press conference attended by coach Adrian Siemieniec, Taras Romanczuk and Dominik Marczuk.

There was no champagne at the conference, but there were tears of happiness. “It’s such an amazing feeling…”

This time there was no “clichéd” rush of players with champagne. However, looking closer, there was great joy on the faces of those involved. The smile of satisfaction did not disappear from Adrian Siemieniec’s face, and the eyes of the team captain, Taras Romanczuk, even glazed over. All three, including Dominik Marczuk, were also greeted with applause by journalists after their historic success.

– Emotions are still running high. I cannot deny that I am now one of the happiest people in Poland – admitted Romanczuk, who celebrated ten years of playing for the club from Białystok with a gold medal for the Polish championship. – I’ve been working on this for a long time. I wanted to thank the staff and coach for this, because after the first round and a 0:3 defeat against Raków, they still believed in us that we were good players and could play football. I think we were able to repay that.

– Well… I won’t talk about the meeting itself, because I don’t know if it makes any sense – Adrian Siemieniec started with a smile. Later he thanked his family, team, fans and Jagiellonia authorities, with emphasis on sports director Łukasz Masłowski.

– It was Łukasz who believed in the nice, sympathetic and modest coach from Jagiellonia’s reserves, who did not achieve particularly outstanding results. Apparently I had something in me that made him trust me and convince people at the club that it was worth giving me a chance. Today we can celebrate it – he explained.

It’s such an amazing feeling… I’ve been here for a while and I know what it meant for this city, for these people. They came close to this success twice. Then we played in the Polish Cup final and it was also close. You’ve been so close so many times, and in the end you just don’t have it. The first historic Polish championship will always be the first historic one. Today we made history, we secured our immortality, it’s amazing – Siemieniec was emotional, reserving, however, that he was sorry about the failure of his friend Dawid Szulczek, whose Warta Poznań was relegated from the top league due to the match against Jagiellonia.

– We know what these decisions meant for Warta Poznań and what consequences they had for my friend Dawid Szulczek. For the first time in my life I didn’t know how to behave. On our side there was great joy, euphoria, incredible achievement, and on the other side there was sadness and despair. For me, the ideal scenario would be if we won the Polish championship and Warta ultimately retained it. Unfortunately for Warta, this did not happen, but I believe that they will come back stronger after this situation and will cope. They are good people, it happens like that in life sometimes, he said.

The Yellow-Red conference lasted about fifteen minutes. – Give us a break, we want to celebrate! – Taras Romanchuk joked. – Let’s enjoy the moment. I told the coach that I was an experienced player and that I had less and less training ahead of me in my life. I appreciate every training session and when I don’t win in training, I get super pissed off. Sometimes I behave like a child, but ambition and emotions sometimes come to the fore.

A year ago, Dominik Marczuk finished the season in the first league in Stal Rzeszów, where he did not play from top to bottom and took part in only half of Stal’s matches . Today, with 6 goals and as many as 13 assists, he is one of the leaders of the Polish champion and a star of the Ekstraklasa.

It shows how perverse football is and how high you can reach with hard work. I’d be lying if I said I expected this to turn out and have numbers like this. But I think I could have even better ones. Now is the time to celebrate, but there will also be time to analyze the entire season. I am happy with the here and now. We won the match, we are Polish champions and we are going to celebrate – said the 20-year-old winger.

Sadness and despair in Warta Poznań. “It was only in the last 30 minutes of the season that we landed in the relegation zone”

How different was the mood of Warta Poznań’s coach, Dawid Szulczek, who came to the press conference depressed, struggling to say the next words.

– Congratulations to Jagiellonia for the Polish championship. We played against the best team in the country, playing with imagination and panache, scoring goals with fantastic ease. This was very difficult for us. Jagiellonia has a great coach, a great person in this position. We played for our lives today against the best. We had everything in our hands in the last two rounds… – said Szulczek.

– We have come a long way, and only in the last 30 minutes of this season did we land in the relegation zone, when we had been out of it for two years – he did not hide, beating his chest. – We all gave what we could. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, not just the players on the pitch. I could also have reacted differently, done something differently. We can’t turn back time, we’ve been relegated and we’ll see what life brings to each of us. Failed to cheat fate. The first two seasons were fantastic, this one was difficult and ends terribly.

However, one of the journalists asked to analyze what happened in the last rounds with the club from Poznań. Szulczek was unable to do this. – I have given so much to this club that now I can’t approach the topic analytically today, I’m too emotional – he concluded.