The Poland Women’s Volleyball National Team pillar Malwina Smarzek may arrive in Brazil next season.
Brazil’s Osasco São Cristóvão Saúde, the fourth-placed side in 2021/22 Superliga Feminina 1XBET regular season (kicked out in the first round of playoff), sent a proposal to Smarzek. And the fans of the São Paulo club have good reasons to be optimistic. Polish player opened negotiations, which according to the information Bruno Voloch shared in his blog, are going well and are heading towards a positive outcome.
Smarzek has returned to Poland from Russia because of the war in Ukraine and joined Developres BELLA DOLINA Rzeszów with which she’s competing in the TAURON Liga playoff finals. However, the return of the opposite hitter to her homeland from Russia’s champions Lokomotiv wasn’t welcomed with approval by some volleyball fans in Poland and that might be one of the main reasons why she might join Osasco.
Namely, she was recently brutally greeted by fans in Łódź with a banner that made her cry. During the last game of the TAURON Liga playoff semi-finals between ŁKS Commercecon Łódź and her team, the local supporters spread the banner saying (translated to English): „smarZek: GO BACK TO Russia“. They were irritated with the fact that Smarzek didn’t want to leave Russia when the country started aggression against Ukraine along with the majority of foreign athletes that did so in protest. At the time, Smarzek explained it with the question „Will that solve anything?“ The situation changed when, during one of the games, Russian fans were holding plates with the letter “Z“, which symbolizes the Russian troops attacking Ukraine. Ultimately, the Poland National Team member terminated the contract with Lokomotiv, left Kaliningrad, and joined Developres. Some fans in Poland obviously didn’t forget her reluctant standpoint and, in Łódź, they showed the mentioned banner.
After her team eliminated ŁKS, Smarzek posted: “Some are making a banner, others are making the final“.
See our sections – Transfers – Done Deals and Transfers – Rumors.
1 comment
Smarzek has nothing to apologize for — and many players who left Russia did so out of general security concerns, including the fear that perhaps they would find it much more difficult to travel later, rather than out of protest.