By Izabela Muczynska

Jagiellonia Bialystok’s performance was not the greatest last season as they battled against relegation, finally finishing safely in 11th position. What was the reason? Jagiellonia did an amazing job the year before during the 2014-15 season, finishing in third and gaining a place in the Europa League.

They came narrowly close to becoming Champions of Poland, but Legia Warsaw took their dreams away. In one of the last games of the season, the referee had blown his whistle when Jagiellonia’s player accidentally touched the ball in the last seconds of the game. Legia Warsaw’s footballer Orlando Sa scored and Jagiellonia lost 1-0 and the dream of becoming champions ended. Upon analysis of the game, many experts found the referee should not have done that.

During the Europa League campaign last season, Jagiellonia qualified to the second round, but unfortunately the team lost to Omonia Nicosia 1-0. As the club is small, their key players had caught the attention of bigger and richer clubs and the offers were too much to turn down. Losing Patryk Tuszynski and Nika Dzalamidze to Caykur Rizespor, Michal Pazdan to Legia Warsaw and Maciej Gaios to Lech Poznan had severely weakened the team. New signings had been made but struggled to settle into the team.

This season is different. The Ekstraklasa table looks very surprising. Jagiellonia Bialystok have spent a long time in first position, so can this season be different from the others and they win the championship? If Jagiellonia hold on to win their first Ekstraklasa, it will be their greatest achievement in their history. Currently they share top spot with Lechia Gdansk with both teams on 36 points and six points ahead of the rest of the teams, but with the rest of the season to play another team can still spoil the party.

Jagiellonia will need to be careful for the remainder of the season, with many mistakes being made by the referee. The coach, Michal Probierz has begun to argue with the referees each time a mistake is made, which cause the team problems as the season continues. On the 4th of December Jagiellonia played a home game against Lech Poznan. A win would mean going back into first, but they not only did they need to play their opponents, but they had to face the referee as well. He accused Jacek Goralski of fouling Tomasz Kedziora; the decision was wrong. It was the other way round. After this free kick, Lech Poznan’s player, Pauluus Arajuuri scored to put the visitors ahead. However, Jagiellonia showed their spirit and won 2-1 returned to the top of the League.

Will they have a chance to become the Polish version of Leicester City’s story? Only time will tell.