Eight Academy players at Euro 2020

Coach Paulo Sousa has 25 players at his disposal for the upcoming European tournament and nearly a third of them are Lech Poznań homegrown players. As per Polish Football Association’s definition from May 24th, 2016, a homegrown footballer is a player who “had been registered at the club – with breaks or without – for a total of three full seasons or 36 consecutive months between the age of 12 (or the beginning of the season during which the player became 12 y.o.) and the age of 21 (or the end of the season when the player became 21 y.o.)”.

Eight Lech Poznań Academy players meet the criteria defined by the Polish Football Association – Jan Bednarek, Bartosz Bereszyński, Tomasz Kędziora, Tymoteusz Puchacz, Karol Linetty, Jakub Moder, Kamil Jóźwiak and Dawid Kownacki. Below is an overview of the players’ individual statistics for the Polish national team:

Ever since Paulo Sousa took over the Polish national team back in January, Kamil Jóźwiak has appeared on the pitch most often from all Lech Academy players. The 23-year-old played in every match since the Italian’s appointment. However, since in four of them, he came in as a substitute, Bereszyński (274) and Moder (261) have spent more time on the pitch in total than their colleague throughout the same period of time.

Coach Sousa is still researching the best formation for the upcoming Euro 2020 and in the recent friendly games, he gave a chance to Puchacz and welcomed back Kownacki after a long break. The Italian manager also called up the national team ‘regulars’ – Bednarek, Kędziora and Linetty. Considering Sousa’s love for experimenting, it is hard to predict which of the Academy players will form the starting line-up in Poland’s first Euro 2020 clash against Slovakia (June 14th, St. Petersburg).

Nonetheless, it’s important to highlight that Lech’s Academy players have helped the club from Poznań outshine other teams in the classification. Only Ajax Amsterdam (14), Dinamo Kiev (11), Dinamo Zagreb and Rabotniski Skopje (9) have more homegrown players competing at the Euro 2020.