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Warsaw's National Stadium named after iconic soccer coach

11.10.2021 00:10
In a ceremony attended by officials and fans, Warsaw's National Stadium was on Sunday named after former Poland football boss Kazimierz Górski, who led the national team during its glory days in the 1970s.
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Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaks at a ceremony on Sunday to name Warsaws National Stadium in honour of Kazimierz Górski.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaks at a ceremony on Sunday to name Warsaw's National Stadium in honour of Kazimierz Górski.Photo: PAP/Piotr Nowak

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told those at the ceremony that Górski was a "man of enormous modesty, but also enormous ambition."

He added that the iconic coach "gave the Polish people hope during that difficult time" decades ago when the country was under communism—"a hope for regaining our value, our greatness, because he was a great Polish patriot."

Morawiecki also said at the ceremony that Warsaw's landmark National Stadium was "a fortress for Polish fans" and "a fortress of Polish patriotism."

"The Polish national football team has not lost a match here in seven years," he noted.

A day earlier, almost 60,000 fans watched the national team trash underdogs San Marino 5-0 in a 2022 World Cup qualifier at the Warsaw stadium. 

Sunday's ceremony followed a series of tributes earlier this year during which officials and fans commemorated Górski on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Górski is widely remembered as the most successful and most respected coach in Polish football history. He managed the national team from 1970 to 1976.

He was in charge when Poland won gold during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, when they finished third in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, and when they grabbed silver in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

After 1976, Górski coached Panathinaikos and Olympiacos in Greece before returning to Poland to manage Legia Warsaw, where he had started out as a player.

After the fall of communism in 1989, he took charge of Poland's soccer association PZPN, which he headed from 1991 to 1995 and was then its honorary president until his death in Warsaw on May 23, 2006.

(gs)

Source: PAP