Pogoń Szczecin waited 3.5 years for such a transfer. She finally found it

3.5 years – this is how long the fans of Pogoń Szczecin have been waiting for the transfer of a new central defender. No player in this position has joined the club since the summer of 2019, when Benedikt Zech, Konstantinos Triantafyllopoulos and Igor Łasicki joined Pogoń.

For the first two or three years it was difficult to blame Pogoń for that. Especially that the pair of Zech – Triantafyllopoulos belonged to the best stopper duos in the league. The Greek and the Austrian were unstoppable players in the team of Kosta Runjaic and now Jens Gustafsson.

If necessary, one of these players was replaced by Mariusz Malec, brought to Pogoń a year earlier. Łasicki, who has been a Wisła Kraków player for several months, was quickly forgotten in Szczecin. All before a very serious injury that stopped his career.

Zech, Triantafyllopoulos and Malec were enough for Pogoń for a long time. The problem is that the form of the first two has clearly decreased. Although the Szczecin team is fifth in the Ekstraklasa table, hardly anyone defends worse than them. This season Pogoń has already lost 28 goals. Only Górnik Zabrze, 12th in the league, Lechia Gdańsk, 13th (30 each) and the last two teams in the table, Miedź Legnica and Korona Kielce (29 each), lost more goals.

Pogoń was looking for a central defender for a long time, but before the start of the spring round, they failed to bring any player to this position. The fans of Pogoń remembered about the problems of Pogoń in the first round in 2023, when the inhabitants of Szczecin drew with Widzew Łódź 3:3.

Pogoń Szczecin has finally found a stopwatch

Now it seems that the club has finally found someone who will raise the competition and strengthen Gustafsson’s team. The central defender, who is to go to Szczecin, is a player from Croatian Osijek – Danijel Loncar.

He is a student of Osijek, who has been in the first team since January 2018. According to information from the Germanijak.hr portal, Loncar is to appear in Szczecin on Friday and undergo medical examinations. It is possible that the 25-year-old will become a Pogoń player in the coming days.

Loncar made a total of 122 appearances for Osijek, scoring four goals and providing four assists. He has only played 12 games this season. Only, because although he started the season as a basic player, from the beginning of October he played only one game in which he scored 45 minutes. According to the professional portal Transfermarkt, he is valued at EUR 1.5 million.

The potential transfer amount is unknown. However, it is known that Pogoń will have to pay Osijek, because the player’s contract expires at the end of June 2026.