Player Analysis: Piotr Zielinski

Piotr Zielinski

From playing on Empoli to being a shoo-in to start agains the defending European Champions, Piotr Sebastian Zielinski has undergone a lot of progress over the past year. The Polish midfield virtuoso was born in the small Polish town of Zabkowice Slaskie. With an area of 13.67 square miles and a population of 15,000 people, there were not many options except playing in the local football club. Under the management of his father, this was the place where Piotr took his first steps at a football pitch. In 2007, 13-year old Piotr Zielinski began to grow apart, both from the team and the town. Polish and foreign clubs wanted his signature on a paper and the young boy ended up in the Polish city Lubin, just 2 hours drive from his home town. His new club was the Ekstraklasa club, Zagliebe Lubin. Zielinski’s talent was impossible to miss and he went through the different youth ranks in a way that no one in Lubin had witnessed before. As a 15-year old he started to appear regularly at the first team trainings. Piotr, his parents and the first team coach at the time, the meritorious Francizsek Smuda, made an agreement that it would be best for his development to practice once a week with the big boys in the first team.

Zielinski’s youth team were one of the best in Poland and competed at international level. Soon, the international caps at youth level for Poland became a fact and since his debut in the Polish U-15 team he has gone through every single national side. During an international youth tournament Udinese spotted the young Pole and it did not take long until he was at a flight down to Udine. As a 17-year old he put his signature on a paper and signed for the north Italian club Udinese. Eighteen months later, in November 2012, an 18-year old Piotr Zielinski introduced himself to the Italian football audience when he replaced the legendary striker Antonio Di Natale in stoppage time against Cagliari.

“I remember the times with Piotr in Lubin. He stood out. I urged him to practice with the first team once a week, every Tuesday. I will tell you this: expect something special from Piotr, it has always been obvious that he is talented. He is that kind of player who want to be educated, he loves football,” said Francizsek Smuda after Zielinski’s first appearance in Serie A.