Poland has set up a scouting network to identify the best footballers in Britain’s 1million-strong Polish community Talent-spotters hope to convince young Poles to play for mother country

The image of the ball ­sliding under the body of Peter Shilton from a Jan Domarski shot on a murky Wembley night in 1973 remains one of the abiding ­images in Polish football.

Now, some 46 years later, the country is intent on ensuring that its next generation of talent does not slip through its grasp in similarly clumsy fashion.

Currently top of their qualifying group, a win against Latvia in Riga this evening will see them take a huge step towards next summer’s European Championship finals.

The talent that could sustain the Polish national team in the future, though, is as likely to come from England as Poland – which is where Przemyslaw Soczynski comes in.

Scouting for the next generation

Based in Norwich, Soczynski, a former sports journalist, is the Polish FA’s talent ID coordinator here in the UK, managing a network of 10 scouts and overseeing a pool of ability that looks set to supplement that produced within Poland’s own borders for the foreseeable future.

“It’s only a rough estimate but there are thousands and thousands of Polish kids playing in the UK, from grass roots to Premier League level,” he tells i.

“In Peterborough, for example, you have Polonia Peterborough, with 90 Polish kids playing at the club.

“In London there are six or seven grass-roots clubs but they’re also in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, East Anglia. Wherever you go, there’s a high chance there is a Polish community club.”

Making their mark

Further up the football food chain there are plenty of young Poles who are making their mark.

Bartosz Cybulski is coming through the ranks at Derby County, Kacper Lopata signed a two-year deal with Brighton in October 2018, while Hubert Graczyk has attended international camps for both England and Poland youth teams.

Wiktoria Kiszkis is the captain of the Poland women’s under-17 side having been capped for England at under-15 level.

And that is just a tiny fraction of the players that Soczynski has been charged with overseeing.

‘There are around one million Poles in the UK and you will see more and more youngsters coming through’

“We’re moving slowly,” he says. “This is the second wave of Polish immigration, the first one was after the Second World War, where we have second and third generation Poles who still feel very connected to Poland.

“Then we have the new generation after 2004. A lot of these kids moved to the UK when they were three, four, five years old. These guys are now 16 or 17 and they’re slowly starting to breakthrough at Premier League academies.

“We have a few players in national [age group] teams who have been through the whole UK system but those numbers will grow. There’s around one million Poles in the UK – it’s a numbers game, you’re going to see more and more Polish youngsters coming through, even at the best academies.”

Early days

At the moment, understandably, the vast majority of those Polish players coming through the youth ranks only have eyes for the shirt worn by the likes of Robert Lewandowski and Wojciech Szczesny but Soczynski believes that could change over time as young Poles begin to associate more readily with the country they now call home.

“I think it will happen, it’s just too early now,” he says. “Our approach would be that it’s the decision of the player and the parent. Really, those teenagers can feel citizens of two countries. Sometimes you need to go to a camp with one team and then do the same with the other to see which one you prefer. “We have some players who can play for four countries through their parents, it’s really mixed these days. You can’t force anyone to play for any nationality.”

Given current events in Westminster and Brussels, the B word is rarely far from the lips of anyone in the UK, regardless of their nationality. But Soczynski is quick to point out the positive role that football has to play in bringing people together rather than creating division and suspicion.

“Football is a really unifying force. At a lot of these Polish clubs, you have Slovakians, Romanians, Hungarians, English kids too. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re a good person, you’ll be liked. If you’re not then you won’t be accepted.”

Whatever deal is struck or not struck this month, this is one cross-European relationship that may deliver long-term benefits for both countries.