The first official football match of the Polish national team was played on December 18, 1921, in Budapest. Hungary won 1-0. Interestingly, the last match played by Poland before the outbreak of World War II was also against Hungary. On August 27, 1939, at the Warsaw stadium of the Polish Army named after Marshal Józef Piłsudski, Poland defeated the then vice-champions of the world 4:2. During that match, Ernest Wilimowski, one of the best strikers of the interwar period, scored three goals.
by Piotr Bejrowski
Although the Polish Football Association was founded in December 1919 in Warsaw, the national team’s first match only took place two years later. The inaugural congress of the Polish Football Association took place despite the ongoing disputes over the final shape of the nation’s borders following 123 years of partitions. It was attended by delegates from 28 clubs representing Małopolska, Mazowsze, Wielkopolska, Silesia, and Eastern Galicia. One of their decisions during the congress was to organize a national championship and invite a coach from Great Britain to prepare a team for the Olympic Games in Antwerp, scheduled for August 1920.
Preparations began in the spring. The first championship games began, and an Olympic team consisting of players from Kraków and Lwów was chosen. However, the games were discontinued in July, and Poland did not send its national team to the Olympics in Belgium. The state faced significant threats at that time, and the Polish-Bolshevik war was reaching its climax near Warsaw. Many football players, including Wacław Kuchar (1897–1981), were also involved in the fighting.
In 1921, Cracovia Kraków, led by a Hungarian coach, became the first national champion. However, Pogoń Lwów emerged as the dominant team in the following years, winning championships in 1922, 1923, 1925, and 1926. The 1924 championship was not held due to preparations for the Olympic Games in Paris.
Józef Kałuża (1896–1944), who would become the national team coach from 1932 to 1939, was the best player and scorer of the first Polish championship. In the first official match of the national team, Kałuża played as an attacker alongside Wacław Kuchar, one of the most versatile Polish athletes of the time. Kuchar was not only the leader of Pogoń Lwów, he also represented the country in football and ice hockey, athletics, and speed skating. He excelled in various events, winning Polish championships in track and field events (800 meters, 110-meter hurdles, 400-meter hurdles), the high jump, the triple jump, and the decathlon. He also played for the national football team at the 1924 Olympic Games. However, Poland was eliminated after the first match, losing to Hungary with a score of 0:5. Two years later, Kuchar became the first winner of the prestigious “Przegląd Sportowy” review poll, which recognized him as the best Polish athlete of the year.
Before starting his football and athletics career, Kuchar graduated from an Austrian officer’s school. He took part in the defense of Lwów during the Polish-Ukrainian war, and after the Polish-Bolshevik war, he transferred to the reserve with the rank of artillery lieutenant.
Kałuża served as the national team’s coach for over seven and a half years in 42 international games. Before they defeated Hungary in the “last match,” the Polish national team, under his leadership, tried its luck twice in the football world championships following its launch in 1930. Their greatest success during Kałuża’s tenure was achieving a fourth place at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. This would stand as the greatest success of Polish footballers until the 1970s. However, “The Eagles of Kałuża” did not advance to the championship in 1934, losing in the qualifying rounds to Czechoslovakia. Four years later, they appeared in the final tournament in France for the first time in history. In the qualifying rounds, they defeated Yugoslavia (4:0 and 0:1). On June 5, 1938, in Strasbourg, in the team’s first and last match of the World Cup, Poland lost 5:6 to Brazil after a play-off. Wilimowski scored four goals for the Polish team.
Pre-war representation reflected the multinational structure of the Second Polish Republic. In the first match against Hungary in 1921, two Cracovia players of Jewish descent took the field, and it was Józef Klotz, also of Jewish descent, scored the first Polish goal in an international match. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the team was captained by Jerzy Bulanow, born in Moscow as Yuri. Additionally, the national team’s first staff member from Legia was of Armenian descent. Also, the first goal in the match against Brazil in 1938 was scored by Fryderyk Scherfke, who was born into a German family and played for Warta Poznań.
The most controversial figure at that time, however, was Ernest Otto Wilimowski (1916–1997). He was a four-time Polish champion with the Ruch Hajduki Wielkie club (now Ruch Chorzów) and a three-time top scorer in the Polish league. He scored 117 goals in the Polish league in 87 matches and 21 goals for the Polish national team in 22 matches.
He was born Ernst Otto Pradella in Katowice (then part of Germany). His father disappeared during World War I. In 1929, his German mother married Roman Wilimowski, a Silesian insurgent, who adopted Ernest as his son and gave him a new surname. When World War II began, the footballer was 23 years old and prioritized his football career above all else. He decided to accept the citizenship of the Third Reich and subsequently played for the German national team, scoring 13 goals in 8 games. After 1942, when international matches ceased, he participated in propaganda matches for Wehrmacht soldiers while wearing a German uniform. In Poland, he was labeled a traitor. He was removed from the official statistics of the Polish national team and never returned to the country.
The “last match” played on the eve of World War II was an opportunity for a great patriotic manifestation. Over 25,000 spectators watched the match. Reservists with gas masks on their shoulders received the greatest applause. The victorious match against the national team of an ally of the Third Reich was an iconic and legendary event for this generation of pre-war sports enthusiasts. Poland had not managed to win against Hungary in their previous nine encounters. As “Przegląd Sportowy” reported before the match: “Without a chance, but with the will to fight, we await our battle with the team of vice-champions of the world.” The Hungarians played poorly. Despite trailing 0:2 after 30 minutes, the Polish team displayed aggressive and ambitious play, turning the match around to secure a remarkable 4:2 win. Wilimowski was in great form. According to “Przegląd Sportowy”: “In Warsaw, at least for a few hours, the most important thing was the football match. […] The kind of enthusiasm that the stadium witnessed when the fourth goal was scored – Warsaw has probably never seen.”
All twelve (eleven plus one reserve) participants of the match survived the war, and four would wear white and red colors after 1945. Coach Kałuża, however, did not survive the war and died in his hometown of Kraków of meningitis [in 1944]. In 2017, the first top scorer of Poland’s football championships of Poland and the coach who defeated the vice-champions of the world on August 27, 1939, was commemorated with a monument. Before Kałuża, only two other figures from Polish football had received such an honor: 1970s national team player Kazimierz Deyna and his coach Kazimierz Górski.
Author: Piotr Bejrowski
Translation: Alicja Rose & Jessica Sirotin
