A European club final could be played under a roof for the first time in history on Wednesday - and the hosts of Dnipro-Sevilla now have other targets to aim for

The first European club final to be played under a closed roof could take place on Wednesday and the location for this historic event will come as a surprise to many football fans. Rather than being held in one of the rich western European countries where such a significant development would be more expected, the venue is the Polish capital city of Warsaw.

The 2015 Uefa Europa League final is being staged at the Stadion Narodowy on the banks of the River Wisła (Vistula). Such is the unseasonably poor weather in central Poland that the match organisers have made contingency plans to shut the stadium roof if the predicted heavy rainfall materialises.

The Poles were already proud enough just to be hosting the country's first European club final. The potential use of the roof, confirmed by Uefa on Tuesday, adds further to the sense that Polish football is making immense advances, which have become ever clearer in recent years.

Polish footballers are far more prominent in leading European clubs than has previously been the case, with Robert Lewandowski at Bayern Munich an outstanding example. Then there are his former team-mates at Borussia Dortmund, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Lukasz Piszczek.


The Stadion Narodowy - with the roof closed - during Tuesday's pre-match training sessions

Arkadiusz Milik is a very promising young forward at Ajax, but perhaps the Polish player who has made the greatest strides forward this season is Grzegorz Krychowiak. The 25-year-old has impressed for Sevilla from the opening moments of his daunting debut against Real Madrid in the Uefa Super Cup in Cardiff last August.

Though that encounter ended in a 2-0 defeat, the defensive midfielder has been vital in helping Sevilla to the Europa League final, making more tackles and more interceptions than any of his team-mates. He has, unsurprisingly, been watched by several of the continent's leading clubs, including Arsenal.

Krychowiak is the latest of an increasing run of Polish footballers participating in major European finals. He has also proved crucial in helping his country to the top of Group D of the Euro 2016 qualifiers ahead of world champions Germany, having impressed in Poland's 2-0 victory over their neighbours at the Stadion Narodowy last October.

The result was immensely significant, as the Poles had never before defeated the Germans in 18 previous attempts, and Krychowiak enthuses: "Our victory over Germany was absolutely huge for the country. It was the first time in history that we had beaten them. I get goosebumps every time I think about it."



It was something that even Poland's past golden generations of footballers did not manage, despite Jan Tomaszewski's famous side securing third place at the 1974 World Cup and Zbigniew Boniek's team subsequently equalling that achievement in 1982. Boniek is now the modernising president of the Polish Football Association, the PZPN.

But a past footballing great as the figurehead of the nation's governing body has not always worked out. The difference now is that Polish football has the infrastructure to go with its ambitions on the pitch. Membership of the European Union has brought much-needed investment but it was Euro 2012 that proved the biggest stimulus.

All four stadiums used for that tournament three years ago were newly built, in Gdansk, Poznan and Wroclaw as well as Warsaw. All are different but every one is beautiful in its construction and none is purely functional. They have attracted leading music acts such as Madonna and Coldplay, bringing in much-needed extra income.



Moreover, the competition to be a Euro 2012 venue meant that new arenas also rose up on the sites of other old stadiums, such as the famous Stadion Slaski in Chorzow and the home grounds of Wisla Krakow and Legia Warszawa. They were just reserve sites for Euro 2012 but the club arenas are attracting more fans back to league games.

Poland may now be hosting its first European club final, but the real ambition is for one of the country's sides to eventually participate in one. It is 45 years since Gornik Zabrze reached the European Cup Winners' Cup final in Vienna in 1970, where they were beaten 2-1 by Manchester City.

First a Polish club must get back among the continent's leading competitors by qualifying for the Champions League, something no team from Poland has managed since Legia went all the way to the quarter-finals in 1995-96, at the expense of, among others, the English league winners, Blackburn Rovers.

With the advances which Polish football is presently making, that is another historical anomaly which should soon be changed.