Szymon Grabowski

Szymon Grabowski (born 8 April 1981) is a Polish professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He is the current manager of Ekstraklasa club Lechia Gdańsk.

Born in Rzeszów, Grabowski began playing football for the youth teams of his local team Resovia Rzeszów. He broke into the first team in 1998, and made his first team debut on the 8 August 1998, in a 2–0 home win against Dynovia Dynów.^[1] During his playing career Grabowski played in the lower divisions of Polish football, never managing to break into the fully professional leagues. During his first spell with Resovia he went out on loan to Błękitni Ropczyce and Izolator Boguchwała, before making a move to Strug Tyczyn. Grabowski stayed with Strug for 18 months before rejoining Resovia in early 2004. His second stint lasted only 12 months, after which he swapped Resovia for Strug again, before returning to Resovia once again another 12 months later. At that point, Grabowski cemented himself as an important first team player, and over the next three years appeared in most of the team's games, including the 2006–07 season when Resovia won the Subcarpathia group of IV liga, and the 2008–09 season when the team were crowned champions of the Lublin–Subcarpathia group of III liga.

After securing his second promotion with Resovia, Grabowski left the team for a final time. He went on to play for MKS Kańczuga, Wisłok Strzyżów (as a player-manager), LKS Przybyszówka, and finally Wisłok Strzyżów again, before retiring as a player in 2016.

Grabowski's first taste of management came during his first spell with Wisłok Strzyżów, where he was a player-manager from 2010 to 2013. In 2014 he joined Resovia's coaching staff as an assistant, a role he held until manager Maciej Huzarski was sacked in September 2015. Grabowski's next chance to manage a team came in 2017 when he was the position of manager at Resovia. Grabowski oversaw the club's group win in the 2017–18 season, resulting in promotion to II liga, and helped the club to become a stable third-tier club, and achieving promotion to I liga in 2020. However, following a poor start to the 2020–21 season, he was dismissed on 1 October 2020 via an e-mail after an away loss to Odra Opole,^[2][3] before being reinstated the following day.^[4] He was ultimately removed from his position on 25 November.^[5]

In July 2021, Grabowski joined III liga Podhale Nowy Targ.^[6] Despite not managing to achieve promotion, Grabowski received praise for leading Podhale to a fifth-place finish, which saw him being offered an opportunity to manage II liga club Stomil Olsztyn.^[7] Grabowski's influence on a team once again proved to be positive as Stomil reached the 2022–23 play-off final. Grabowski's team just missed out on promotion however as they lost the final and the final promotion place to Motor Lublin on penalties. Despite once again failing to achieve promotion, Grabowski's positive impact over the Stomil team attracted attention from teams in higher divisions.

In June 2023, recently relegated Lechia Gdańsk appointed Grabowski as manager after buying out his contract.^[8] Lechia earned promotion back to Ekstraklasa on their first attempt, after a 4–3 win over Wisła Kraków on 11 May 2024.^[9] Eight days later, they were crowned I liga champions following a 2–1 Tricity Derby victory over Arka Gdynia.^[10]

As of match played 9 November 2024

Resovia

• III liga Lublin-Subcarpathia: 2008–09
• IV liga Subcarpathia: 2006–07

Resovia

• III liga, group IV: 2017–18

Lechia Gdańsk

• I liga: 2023–24^[10]

Individual

• Polish Union of Footballers' I liga Coach of the Season: 2023–24^[11]