What a final! Legia Warsaw defeated Raków Czestochowa in a highly emotional final for the Polish National Cup.
Kosta Runjaic, former coach of MSV Duisburg, will probably never forget 2 May 2023.
As coach of Legia Warsaw, the 51-year-old won the Polish Cup. Legia defeated Ekstraklasa leaders Raków Czestochowa 6:5 on penalties at Warsaw’s National Stadium, where the cup final has been played for several years. Raków were Polish Cup winners in each of the past two years.
This time the title stayed with Legia in Warsaw. After 120 minutes, the 45,000 fans saw no goals. Legia had to play with a reduced number of players from the 5th minute onwards, because Yuri Ribeiro was shown the red card after an emergency stop.
Filip Mladenovic also received a red card. The Legia left-back behaved in an extremely unsportsmanlike manner and caused a real scandal after the final whistle, the decisive penalty, which Legia keeper Kacper Tobiasz saved from Mateusz Wdowiak – see Twitter video.
Mladenovic, a 2022 World Cup participant with Serbia, first punched Raków’s Wiktor Dlugosz in the face while cheering towards the Legia fan curve and then Jean Carlos, who chased Mladenovic and tried to confront him. Before that, Mladenovic was allegedly provoked by the Raków bench. But that is unlikely to excuse his behaviour either.
“I understand all the emotions that are part of such a game. But what the Legia player allowed himself to do crosses all boundaries. I would be ashamed if we had such a player in our squad. But fortunately we don’t have that. That is Legia’s problem,” Raków coach Marek Papszun ranted on Polish television after the match.
Mladenovic’s teammate Rafal Augustyniak could not justify his teammate’s behaviour either and told “Radio Zet”: “What can I say about the behaviour after the game? I watched the videos and I have to say that you can’t react like that. I saw Mladenovic hit an opponent. You can’t do that! After a win like that, you have to show class and apologise.”
It remains to be seen what red card Mladenovic will do and what penalty he will be given. The 31-year-old Mladenovic has played for Legia Warsaw since the summer of 2020 (102 games, 15 goals, 22 assists). In the Bundesliga, he will also be a familiar name to fans of 1. FC Köln. The Serbian was under contract with the “Effzeh” from January 2016 to January 2017 and played 16 competitive games (no goal, no assist) for Cologne. For Mladenovic, this should be the end of the season.
Legia Warsaw are in second place in the Ekstraklasa with 60 points with four matchdays to go. First is cup final opponent Raków Czestochowa with eleven points ahead of Legia. On the next matchday, the Silesians, who still played in the 3rd league in 2016, could clinch the Polish championship with a win.