By Trevor Stynes
KRAKOW, Poland (Reuters) – Carina Gubin, a fourth-tier Polish football club with a proud history, reached the last 16 in the Polish Cup on Tuesday and are now hoping to play one of the country’s biggest teams.
Gubin is a city on the border with Germany. For years one of Gubin’s main employers was the Carina shoe factory, from its opening in the 1950s until the political transformation of the country in 1989.
The company went bankrupt in 1997, but its name lives on in the local football club. Andrzej Iwanicki is the club president, and his furniture company is one of the sponsors, but the name Carina (from the Italian word for “pretty”) remains.
The club have mainly competed in regional leagues since their foundation in 1950, but reached the fourth tier of Polish football in 2021 and victory in one of Poland’s 16 regional cups last season sent them into the main Polish Cup.
They have beaten two teams from the third tier, and Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Stal Stalowa Wola took them further than ever before, although Carina were unable to host the game due to the condition of their pitch.
They could entertain a top-tier side in the next round.
“Whether we play the next match at our stadium depends on many factors, but above all on the weather and the condition of the pitch,” Carina vice president Arkadiusz Mikolajczyk told Reuters.
“We have a few ideas for it, but first we are waiting for the draw. Who would we like to get? Probably Legia Warsaw,” Arkadiusz said, referring to the Cup holders and Poland’s most successful club.
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(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Ed Osmond)
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