Michał Białoński, Interia: You have reached the Super Cup, the Polish Cup and the Poland Vice Cup. Do you feel like a winner or are you unhappy about dropping the National Championship at the end of the tournament?
Marek Babson, Coach Raku: Tough question. On the other hand, given our goals, our possibilities and our expectations, it has been a great season. When you win the Polish Cup and captain Ekstraklasa in three matches before the end, you have everything in your hands, and you will definitely be hungry for something. There is an internal conviction that, nevertheless, it was possible to achieve more – winning the Polish championship.
Do you remember how many matches he made in Ekstraklasa?
– No, but we have Mr. Iwo – a local statistical historian who told me before the last conference that my 100th match in Ekstraklasa would be in Lubin.
exactly. A hundred matches have already been made. We have prepared a table from this period. Raku is four points ahead of Lech.
Jubilees was not a success for me, because we lost our 200th match for Rakow in Extraklasa in Krakow with Krakow. It was the same in Lupine. So no luck, I’ll delete the following (laughs). But the schedule for these 100 matches is interesting, because we are the best team to score more than 100 matches. It shows that stability and repetition in our activities are very important issues in sports.
Do you feel like Alex Ferguson from Ekstraklasa? You have been working at one club for over six years. Nobody can match you in this. In other clubs, for example in Legia, there were already 10 coach changes at that time.
– That is true, although the comparison is gross and insufficient. Certainly, such changes are common in a coach’s career. I looked at the statistics and found that a coach’s working time in Poland is no different from the average working time in other countries, even in England. There, the average coach’s work fluctuates around a year. Six years is a long time. It was a useful and efficient time for the club, for its development, but also for me as a coach. We benefit from it jointly: the club I, the people who work here, the owner of the club Michał Świerczewski, who placed his bet on me and with whom we have been working all these years, we are building the club, because there have been a lot of changes during this period. Michał Świerczewski is the basis and pillar of this development.
It seems that you and Mr. Świerczewski have found your own. Do you remember that first call from him with an offer he couldn’t refuse?
– I frankly admit that it is not. This recruitment was legendary. So long and so precise, it’s almost unheard of in football. I had not heard that coaches at that time were subject to such verification. Did he hit him himself? yes! It would be impossible to do well for many years if this popular chemistry had not existed between me and Michael. We get along very well and the result is the results and the changes that are taking place in Raku. We understand each other, respect each other and trust each other. I don’t remember a situation where it would be a huge disappointment on one side or the other.
Of course, sometimes we disagree on some points and disagree, but that’s okay. Discussions, even very emotional ones, bring good results
How do you attract a player like Ivi Lopez, who has grown into the best player in the entire league? After all, Lech and Legia offer higher contracts, and that talent went to Raków.
– Yes, I agree that Ivi is, if not the best, one of the best players in Ekstraklasa. My assistant Gonzalo Feu, as well as the coach he worked with in Wisla Krakow – Kiko Ramirez and people also associated with Polish football, certainly played an important role in the transition. Evan Gonzalez – the former Wiswa footballer – also played a big role in convincing Effie that this was a good project, a good country and a good league, so that he could continue his career here.
Read also: Effie Lopez, PKO Ekstralasy’s top scorer
Appetite grows with eating. Are you sure you are dreaming of being promoted to the Conference League? A year ago I stopped at the last obstacle, the Belgian city of Ghent.
– Yes, of course. I just met colleagues about the future. We thought about what we could improve further. We are thinking about the resources we have, but we are also working on transfers, on strengthening the team to overcome this last barrier.
Did you really intend to boycott Ekstraklasa Gala because the Lech Pozna authorities insulted your club while celebrating the tournament? Another thing is that Piotr Rutkowski’s explanation that he doesn’t know what fans are singing about and that he’s singing with them was embarrassing.
– We talked about it, about the whole unpleasant situation. Not only the behavior of Lech’s activists, but also the behavior of his players. However, we came to the conclusion that each person celebrates the opponent or pays respect to him in different ways. For example, she congratulated Lech on the Polish championship at the press conference. The club’s owner, Michał Świerczewski, and our supervisory board chair, Wojtek Cygan, also expressed their congratulations via social media. Lech did it differently. Everyone has their own ways of behaving. This is what I leave for others to evaluate.
Interviewed by: Michal Biansky,
We’ll be posting an extensive interview with Marek Babson tomorrow
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