Polonia Warszawa Polonia Warszawa are a club whose very name was an act of defiance. Formed in the autumn of 1911 through the merger of two grammar school teams, Stella and Merkury, at a time when Warsaw was under Russian occupation, the proud and unambiguous name Polonia itself stood as a form of resistance against the occupiers. The club played its first official match in November 1911, losing 3-4 to Korona Warszawa, and from spring 1913 the players wore the distinctive black shirts that gave rise to the nickname Czarne Koszule (the Black Shirts).
The club's first great success did not come until after the war - in December 1946, Polonia won the Polish championship, beating Cracovia 2-0 in the final. The triumph is still known as the championship won amid the ruins, since Warsaw was still lying in rubble from wartime destruction, and the final was played at the Polish Army Stadium because the club's own ground on Konwiktorska Street had been razed during the fighting. In 1952, Polonia added their first Polish Cup to the trophy cabinet, though the triumph was symbolically shadowed by relegation to the second division that same year. Fans then waited nearly half a century for the next major success. In the 1999/2000 season, under coaches Jerzy Engel and Dariusz Wdowczyk, Polonia topped the Ekstraklasa table for the first time in their history and won a second Polish championship, before lifting a second Polish Cup the following year. In Champions League qualifying, the side eliminated Romania's FC Dinamo Bucharest before losing in the next round to Panathinaikos.
After years of sporting highs came a painful financial crisis that, in 2013, led to the loss of the club's Ekstraklasa licence and relegation to the lower leagues. The club has since steadily rebuilt, with a turning point coming in 2020 when Polonia was taken over by French businessman Gregoire Nitot. For more than a century, the Black Shirts have played their home matches at the legendary stadium on Konwiktorska Street, known to fans as K6, a ground that witnessed fighting during the Warsaw Uprising and remains one of the most symbolic sites in the history of Warsaw sport.