I can vaguely remember his playing time at Celtic but I know nothing about the rest of his career, particularly the management side of things. Can anyone give me a few details about him? I tried to search online but the language barrier is proving a problem. Any information would be much appreciated.
Wdowczyk (born in 1962) was a defender in his playing days, represented Poland 53 times and played for Celtic from 1989 to 1994, and then for Reading from 1994 to 1998. Has been coaching in Poland since then, mostly first division clubs, starting with Polonia Warszawa from 1998 to 2000 (Polish Championship), then Orlen Plock from 2000 to 2001, then Widzew Lodz from 2001 to 2002, Korona Kielce 2002 to 2004, finally Legia Warsaw 2004 until April of this year. He won the Polish league championship with Legia last year. Despite the lack of international success as a coach he is thought of as one of the best young coaches in Poland. Before Beenhakker took over as coach of the Polish NT he was one of the names mentioned. As far as I can remember, he was fairly instrumental in bringing Artur Boruc to Celtic, and has pretty good coaching "papers". But perhaps Legionista or some other Legia fan can tell us more about him.
firstly heres a link to some stats from his playing days http://90minut.pl/kariera.php?id=2313 u-18 runner up in 80 and 81. as said 52 matches for the senior NT with 2 goals. a regular but missed Mexico 86. 6 time nt captain. defender. usually left. first club: Gwardia Warszawa. then a first division team. moving to Wojska Polskiego he was already a first team player. during his spell at Legia (crowned by a polish cup triumph in 89 and a super cup in 90) considered one of the top polish defenders, despite never winning a polish championship as a player, which resulted in a transfer to Celtic in the 89/90 winter break. im not going to write about his career in Britian since i take it that you came prepaed after that he came back to Poland in the autumn of 98 to our only local rival that is Polonia for one round as a playing assistant manager. after one round he ended his playing career and together with later (now former) NT coach Jerzy Engel they took over Polonia and worked to the 99/00 winter break when Engel left to coach the NT and Wdowczyk started working solo. as a coach hes proven to be quite successful. Polonia was a team from the upper half of the table (but still a mediocre one since i can recall) which came back to the first league in 96 after 40yrs in lower divisions. Wdowczyk led it to the championship and league cup triumph in 99/00. the style in which they did it: The league cup final was played in late april at our stadium and we were the favourite although they had a good run plus some later to become big names (at least for polish conditions, most notably Zewlakow - now Olympiakos and Olisadebe - last noticed in Pompey reserves but i dont know what happened to him). luck smiled to them that night. they snatched the win with a free kick in the injury time after an even contest. but that was only the beginning. what happened a month later was for me one of the worst moments. the kind you never forget. Polonia came to Wojska Polskiego 3 rounds before climax as a leader and needed a win to secure the championship. we stood there with our jaws touching the ground and watched as they dominate the match from the frist to final whistle and crush us like a cockroach scoring three goals in the process. after the third one referee stopped the match and police had to intervene couple hundred people tried to break through the fence (which was then around 4m of iron and bent like in prison) and when they failed started to climb over it. after around 10 minutes the remaining 13 were played and they celebrated their first title since 50yrs. the feeling than. the stadium silent in disbelief, air soooooo fn heavy and them singing and chanting together with their fans next to the guest sector. i think i dont have to say more so back to reality. next season after a weak first round Wdowczyk parted ways with Polonia and went to work to Wisla Plock for a couple of months, than Widzew Lodz but he didnt meet the expectations. he found a new employer in Kielce. Third league side Korona had a powerful sponsor and high ambitions. In the first season which was 03/04 i think he led Korona to the second league from the first place. next season they were promoted to the first league also from first but Wdowczyk wasnt there to see it. he left to join Legia in mid season as far as i remember but due to some problems he remained unemployed until september 2005. when he finally signed a contract with Legia who had a nightmare start to the season they started working their way up the table to reach 2nd place at the break with only a point loss to leader Wisla Krakow. with couple new signings and a tough winter for the players Legia sparkled in the spring round smashing opponents one after another securing the title before the match that was supposed to be the final showdown - against Wisla at home. with the pressure off and booze in their heads the players didnt play 100% and lost 1-2 but noone really cared. with hopes high we went into the current season. champions league draw brought us Shakhtar and we got knocked out landing in the uefa cup but against Austria Vien. Then something cracked. While we put up quite a fight against the Ukrainians we just gave Austria the win on a plate. Europe was over but thats nothing new for polish clubs so Wdowczyk stayed. First round of the season was not that good (5th) but its typical for Legia to put on a strong chase at the end of the season. this year it started too late when we had no chance of catching up - from the first match under a new coach. Wdowczyk was fired on 13th of april. Thats about it. Cheers L
We announced Mark Proctor as our new manager some time ago but yesterday the club made the annoucement that Dariusz Wdowczyk would be joining as Director of Football, starting on July 1st. Interesting move. There will also be a Polish international unveilved at some point today. Who it is and their level of international experience (could be a one cap wonder for all I know) is unknown at this stage. You can read what he had to say on our official site: http://www.livingstonfc.co.uk/newsdet.php?news_id=757&type_id=1
Hello. First of all I cannot start a new thread, so I will post on this. Secondly, as you can probably see, I am a Livingston Fan, and part of the Ultra group Drum Beat Mafia. I was wondering if anyone can give me info about Mariusz Liberda, a Polish Internationalist, (Keeper) who is 6feet 7 Any Information would be good coming from the Polish side of things. Thanks
Wdowczyk is seen as a legend at Reading! Even though we are now in the top division he is still one of the best players I have ever seen wear our shirt.
IIRC (and there's a chance I don't, I admit) he pretty much had his career ended by a bad tackle. Nothing unusual in that, except it was from the Reading goalkeeper. For one year we had a complete hapless, helpless and hopeless clown called Simon Sheppard in goal for us. With Dariusz playing a ball back to the keeper from 30 yards out, the keeper rushed out needlessly to clear it, only to completely miss the ball and take out Dariusz instead. To add insult, literally, to injury, it allowed a chasing Luton Town player to put his team 1-0 up with an open goal. He did play again, but didn't seem quite the same. Being a relatively unknown player in England, it was always a joy to go to away games and hear the PA guy reading out the Reading team...."No.3, Andy Bernal....No.4 Adrian Williams...No.5 Dariusz.......................err.....................wodow....(err..)...see...zzz.....yik?"
http://90minut.pl/kariera.php?id=1141 here are some stats. two time (and current) polish champion, two time cup winner. never liked him though. one thing funny is that the more we always sweared and shouted at him the better he played
So he's pretty good then. Played last night in a friendly where Livi won 6-0. he was supposedly very good and looked very hard to beat. So the Livi squad looking good and so are the Ultras. What more could u want