After finishing the 2017-18 regular season PlusLiga in 2nd place to Zaksa, Skra was finally able to overcomme the two-time defendig champions en route to winning its 9th PlusLiga Championship. However, if the team plans to go for a repeat this upcoming season, things will not be easy, as it has lost five players to the summer transfer market: Bartosz Bednorz and Srećko Lisinac moved to Italy, Szymon Romać moved to France, and Marcin Janusz and Nikolai Penchev moved to other PlusLiga clubs. To replace them, the club announced Artur Szalpuk, Jakub Kochanowski, Renee Teppan, Piotr Orczyk, and Kamil Droszyński. Club president Konrad Piechocki is confident that this will be enough:
I am glad that after the departures of such players as Srecko Lisinac and Bartosz Bednorz we managed to sign Kochanowski and Szalpuk. I deeply believe that PGE Skra will not be weaker this season, and maybe even stronger. I think that the composition is balanced with our captain Mariusz Wlazły leading the way. He allows us to look optimistically and believe that we will be fighting for the highest goals again, even though the league will be even more tough. We dream of winning the Polish championship for the tenth time is a real one. This season we will play in the PlusLiga, Polish Cup, and Champions League, and also maybe the Club World Championships if we qualify. We will fight, although the budgets of the leading Polish clubs are at the level of EUR 3 million, while Perugia, Macerata, not to mention Kazan, have a budget of EUR 9 million.”
Bednorz and Lisinac are two of the hottest upcoming young European volleyball players today, so it’s no wonder that the Italian market picked them up. If Skra plans to repeat in this year’s PlusLiga, optimism alone won’t be enough, as Skra will have to hope it can develop its newcomers to reach the performance level of their predecessors.
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