The toughest challenge for Jan Urban in Gornik Zabrze. A madman’s dream in the Silesian Club

Jan Urban returns to Gornik Zabrze as a coach. History has come full circle. Activists are in a panic, because the well-deserved club is again on the verge, as it is threatened with degradation from Ekstraklasa. Last time, Urban saved him, but then “thanks” he was fired from his job.

Jan Urban, club legend

When information surfaced in mid-June last year that Górnik Zabrze had sacked Jan Urban, the Polish football community was shocked. To expel the coach after the start of preparations for the new season was not even the impudence of the activists. Let’s call it what it is: it was arrogance. And a complete sense of impunity, the belief that an activist with a coach can do anything.

On the pages of Wprost, I wrote then that this dismissal was a kick for me. Not stylish, sloppy, hasty. And yet, the club’s legend was fired from his job, a football player who won three Polish championships with Gornik, helped the team reach the UEFA Cup and whose transfer to Osasuna earned the Zabrze team well.

Not only that, in the first season of Urban’s work in Zabrze, the personally weak Gornik showed very pleasant football and ended the season in a favorable, 8th place in the table, although earlier he was tipped off as a relegation candidate. Working conditions for Urban were really difficult. Without money for transfers, without a good organization of the club, without good scouting, the coach had to rely on talented youth. And he did it.

President Górnik Zabrze looks like a bumper

However, at the same time, he demanded reinforcements from the club, because he wanted to develop the team so that it would not have to tremble every season for its existence at the highest level. The then managing chairman of the club solved this problem in a peculiar way. Arkadiusz Szymanek wanted to get rid of Urban. Mayor Malgorzata Manki-Shulik had to agree to this. Nothing happens in the club without her approval, because Gornik is owned by Zabrze. The first time, Szymanek failed to kick the coach, but he worked so hard at it that he eventually got his way.

In place of Urban, he hired Bartosz Gaul, a coach, one might say, out of nowhere. It was not even very surprising, because Szymanek is also nowhere to be found. Before Gornik, he was the president of Ajax Częstochowa, whose adults play in class A. With such a scale of competence, it is not even surprising that the legendary club is in serious trouble. Just a few days ago, coach Galli was fired, and the former president left his post last year.

Here you need to know that presidents Gornik, president Zabrze treat them like bumpers. When they wear out—or when she thinks they wear out—she replaces them.

The joyful work of the mayor will be sure to be appreciated by Gurnik’s fans in the elections to local governments next year. Journalists are merciless in their assessments. “This is a football club game,” we read in the comments, the authenticity of which is hard to deny.

In Zabrze, the club has been run by new people for several days now. The president is former Poland goalkeeper Adam Matysek, while the sporting director is Lukasz Milik, brother of Juventus striker Arkadiusz Milik. Again, they are betting on Urban, but if the team does not defend themselves from relegation, then they will certainly share the fate of the previous “bumpers”.