In Poland, Football (soccer) is the most popular sport. Over 400,000 Poles play football regularly, millions more play football sometimes... The Ukraine national football team is the national football team of Ukraine and is controlled by the Football Federation of Ukraine...

Poland

Overview

In Poland, Football (soccer) is the most popular sport. Over 400,000 Poles play football regularly, millions more play football sometimes. The first professional clubs were founded in the early 1900s and the Polish national football team played its first international match in 1921.

There are hundreds of professional and amateur football teams in Poland. The football teams are organized into the national 1st league and 2nd league, 4 regional 3rd leagues, 18 regional 4th leagues, 49 regional 5th leagues and many more lower level leagues. There are also Polish Cup and Polish Supercup competitions.

Polish national football team
Orange Ekstraklasa
Polish Championship in Football
Polish Cup
Polish SuperCup
Polish Cup (women)
Polish women's national football team

History

The history of football in Poland started in late 19th century with the rising popularity of the new sport. The first professional Polish football clubs were Lechia Lwów (1903), Czarni Lwów (1903), Pogoń Lwów (1904), Cracovia Kraków (1906) and Wisła Kraków (1906). The Polish national federation called Polish Football Union (Polski Związek Piłki Nożnej, PZPN) was founded on December 20, 1919, in Warsaw. 31 delegates elected Edward Cetnarowski as the first president. PZPN joined FIFA in 1923 and UEFA in 1955.

Much like in other European states, football started its career in Poland in late 19th century. In 1888 Prof. Henryk Jordan, a court physician of the Habsburgs and the pioneer of sports in Poland, opened a sports park in Kraków's Błonia, a large open space surrounding the demolished city walls in that town. The park, along with the Sokół society founded in 1867, became the main centres to promote of sports and healthy living in Poland. It was Jordan who began promoting football as a healthy sport in open air; some sources also credit him with bringing the first football to Poland from his travels to Brunswick in 1890[1]. Other sources [2] mention Dr. Edmund Cenar as the one to bring the first ball and the one to translate The Cambridge Rules and parts of the International Football Association Board regulations to Polish language.

On July 14, 1894 during the Second Sokół Jamboree in Lwów a short football match was played between the Sokół members of Lwów and those from Kraków. It lasted only six minutes and was seen as a curiosity rather than a potentially popular sport. Nevertheless, it was the first recorded football match in Polish history[3]. It was won by the Lwów team after Włodzimierz Chomicki scored the only goal - and the first known goal in Polish history.

This match incited the popularity of the new sport in Poland. Initially the rules and regulations were very simplified, with the size of the field and the ball varying greatly. Despite being discouraged by many educational societies and the state authorities, the new sport gained extreme popularity among pupils of various gymnasiums in Galicia. The first football teams were formed and in 1903-1904 four of Lwów-based gymnasiums formed their own sport clubs, the IV Gymnasium for Boys formed a club later renamed to Pogoń Lwów, while the pupils of the I and II State Schools formed the Sława Lwów club, later renamed to Czarni Lwów. In the same season also the Lechia Lwów was formed. It is uncertain which of the clubs was created the first as they were initially little organized, however the Czarni Lwów are usually credited to be the first Polish professional football team. The following year popularity of the new sport spread to nearby Rzeszów where Resovia Rzeszów was formed, while in German-held part of Poland the 1. FC Katowice and Warta Poznań were formed.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West ShowOn June 6, 1906 the representation of Lwów youth came to Kraków for a retake match, this time composed of two already organized teams, the Czarni and the team of the IV Gymnasium. Kraków's representation was badly beaten in both meetings (4:0 and 2:0 respectively). The same summer the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show set up a camp at Kraków's Błonia, right outside of the traditional playground area and Jordan's garden. On August 5, 1906 the team of the Kraków-based Jan Sobieski's Gymnasium played a match against the British and American members of Buffalo Bill's troupe winning 1:0. The only goal scored by Stanisław Szeligowski was also the first goal scored by a Polish team in an international meeting. The success led to popularization of football in Kraków and to creation of the first Kraków-based professional football team, the Cracovia Kraków - initially composed mostly of the students of the Jan Sobieski's Gymnasium[1]. By the autumn of that year there were already 16 teams in Kraków, including the Wisła Kraków. In 1911 a Kraków-based Union of Polish Football for Galicia was formed and entered the Austrian Football Federation. The union inspired the creation of a number of teams, including the Polonia Warszawa formed later that year as the first football club in Warsaw.

After the outbreak of World War I, most of the Galician football players, many of them wither members of Strzelec or Sokół, joined the Piłsudski's Polish Legions. The unit, fighting alongside the Austro-Hungarian Army, fought mostly in various parts of Russian-held Poland, which led to popularization of the new sport in other parts of Poland. Among the notable clubs started during the war was Legia, initially a club of the Legions and after the war renamed to Legia Warszawa. After Poland regained her independence, on December 21, 1919 the Polish Football Association (PZPN) was formed. Headed by Edward Centrarowski, it united most of the then-existent Polish football clubs. The league could not be formed due to the Polish-Bolshevik War, but in 1922 the PZPN published the rules of football[4] and the following year it joined FIFA. In 1921 the league was resumed and the first Champion of Poland was Cracovia Kraków, followed by Pogoń Lwów in 1922, 1923, 1925 and 1926. As Poland was then a fully independent state, in 1921 the Polish national football team was formed. On December 18, 1921 it played its first international match in Budapest against the Hungarian team and was defeated 0:1. In the third international match in Stockholm on May 28, 1922 Poland defeated Sweden 2:1 scoring its first international victory.

In 1955 the PZPN became one of the founding members of UEFA.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

Ukraine

Overview

The Ukraine national football team is the national football team of Ukraine and is controlled by the Football Federation of Ukraine. After the split of the Soviet Union, they played their first match against Hungary on April 29, 1992.

Prior to the split, Ukrainian players represented the USSR national football team. Some of the best Ukrainian players of the beginning of 1990's (including Andrei Kanchelskis and Viktor Onopko) chose to play for Russia as it was named the official successor of the USSR, while Ukraine did not participate in major international competitions until 1994.

Despite having one of the best players in the world, Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine failed to qualify for any major intercontinental tournament prior to 2005, three times failing at the last qualifying stage, the playoffs, after consecutively finishing 2nd in their qualifying groups. It lost to Croatia, failing to get to the 1998 FIFA World Cup, Slovenia prevented Ukraine from going to Euro 2000, and Germany stopped them prior to the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

After an unsuccessful Euro 2004 qualification campaign, Ukraine appointed Oleg Blokhin as the national team's head coach. Despite initial resentment to his appointment due to his previous poor coaching record and calls for a foreign coach, his appointment eventually proved to be a good move, as Ukraine went on to qualify for their first-ever FIFA World Cup on September 3 2005, by drawing their match with Georgia, 1:1, in T'bilisi. In their first World Cup (2006 FIFA World Cup), Ukraine managed to reach the quarter-finals before losing 3:0 to eventual champions Italy.

Stadiums

The most important matches of the Ukrainian national team are held in Kiev´s Olimpiysky National Sports Complex, the previous home venue of Dynamo Kyiv (which presently only uses the stadium for major European matches). However as new infrastructure and stadiums are built (especially in preparation for Euro 2012), other venues have include stadiums in the cities of Lviv, Donetsk and Odessa.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org