LEGNICA, Poland. June 10 (PSN) – Both Miedz Legnica and Zaglebie Sosnowiec have won promotion to play in the LOTTO Ekstraklasa for the 2018-2019 season.
Miedz Legnica went into the final week stretch of Nice 1 Liga fixtures confident of their guaranteed promotion, being clear leaders of the league table with 63 points. Their last game against Puszcza Niepolomice was merely a formality which ended in a 1:1 away draw.
Pawel Zielinski scored for Miedz in the 80th minute and it looked like the club would bid farewell to the league in style as victors. However, Puszcza responded back in the dying seconds of the game with Rafal Mikulec scoring from a daring volley kick near the penalty box.
Fortunately, that didn’t spoil the Miedz players and fans mood much as the team nonetheless celebrated their promotion after the final whistle was blown. This will be the first time in the club’s history to play in the top flight. As league champions they automatically move up to the LOTTO Ekstraklasa, while Gornik Leczna, Olimpia Grudziadz and Ruch Chorzow were relegated to the 2 Liga.
Ruch Chorzow, despite being in the LOTTO Ekstraklasa last season now ended their time in the Nice 1 Liga in last place with only 27 points to their name. They were deducted 6 points due to financial penalties.
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Puszcza Niepołomice – Miedź Legnica 1:1 (0:0)
Goals: Mikulec 90′ – Zieliński 80′
Yellow carded: Stefanik, Zawadzki – Bartulović
Referee: Sebastian Jarzębak (Bytom) Attendance: 1010
Puszcza: 12. Marcin Staniszewski (23, 99. Miłosz Mleczko) – 15. Rafał Mikulec, 23. Piotr Stawarczyk, 3. Michał Czarny, 27. Mateusz Bartków – 14. Dawid Ryndak (80, 28. Michał Mikołajczyk), 16. Dominik Zawadzki, 11. Marcin Stefanik, 10. Maciej Domański (67, 19. Marcin Orłowski), 21. Jakub Zagórski – 9. Krzysztof Drzazga
Miedź: 95. Piotr Smołuch – 23. Paweł Zieliński, 28. Kornel Osyra, 24. Tomislav Božić, 19. Grzegorz Bartczak – 11. Mladen Bartulović, 6. Rafał Augustyniak, 21. Przemysław Mystkowski (61, 25. Karol Gardzielewicz), 7. Łukasz Garguła, 9. Fabian Piasecki (75, 4. Wojciech Łobodziński) – 77. Mateusz Piątkowski (87, 27. Mariusz Idzik)
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While Miedz’s promotion was already confirmed a few rounds beforehand, it was a somewhat similar situation with the second club who would also be rewarded promotion to the LOTTO Ekstraklasa. The race for second place was primarily between Zaglebie Sosnowiec and Chojniczanka Chojnice all the way until the 33rd round, with Zaglebie holding 55 points and Chojniczanka 53. On paper it was the club from Sosnowiec who were the clear favourites to take second place, only needing a win in their next two games to capture promotion.
However, since there was still a mathematical chance that the Chojnice outfit could still overtake Zaglebie Sosnowiec in the standings than nothing was guaranteed yet. It was only until Chojniczanka took a 1:5 beating from leaders Miedz Legnica in the 33rd round that a Zaglebie 1:0 scraped out win over Ruch Chorzow determined that the race had come to an end.
Chojniczanka did later manage to pocket themselves 3 points with a convincing 4:0 win over Bytovia Bytow in the 34th final round, but by then it made no difference in the promotion situation. Zaglebie Sosnowiec ended up losing 0:2 to GKS Tychy at home, but nonetheless had the point advantage over Chojniczanka and now join Miedz in the LOTTO Ekstraklasa for the upcoming season.
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Zagłębie Sosnowiec – GKS Tychy 0:2 (0:0)
Goals: Abramowicz 55′, Grzeszczyk 90′
Yellow carded: Milewski, Cichocki, Puchacz – Vojtuš, Tanżyna, Matusiak, Biernat
Referee: Konrad Gąsiorowski (Biała Podlaska) Attendance: 4950
Zagłębie: 1. Dawid Kudła – 77. Konrad Wrzesiński, 4. Arkadiusz Jędrych, 16. Mateusz Cichocki, 99. Tymoteusz Puchacz – 11. Patryk Mularczyk (64, 70. Nuno Malheiro), 21. Sebastian Milewski, 66. Adam Banasiak (77, 27. Vamara Sanogo), 6. Tomasz Nowak, 42. Alexandre Cristóvão (69, 87. Konrad Kumor) – 20. Szymon Lewicki
Tychy: 91. Konrad Jałocha – 13. Mateusz Grzybek, 4. Marcin Biernat, 27. Daniel Tanżyna, 33. Dawid Abramowicz – 25. Kamil Zapolnik, 32. Edgar Bernhardt, 6. Łukasz Matusiak (83, 5. Maciej Mańka), 8. Łukasz Grzeszczyk, 16. Jakub Piątek – 17. Jakub Vojtuš (80, 26. Paweł Kaczmarczyk)
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