 On Wednsday May 21st , the Chicago Fire will face one of Poland's oldest and most popular teams when they face Wisla Krakow in their first international friendly of 2008. With over 185,000 Polish speakers in the city of Chicago, it's not too far fetched to believe that there are many Krakow fans within its limits, but Chicago has an even closer connection with the team in Fire forward Tomasz Frankowski. Tomasz actually started his playing career with the Polish team Jagiellonia Bialystok in 1991. It was not until 1998 that Tomasz joined Wisla Krakow and enjoyed much of the success which made him a starter on the Polish national team for the 2006 World Cup Qualifying rounds. Tomasz was leading goal scorer for the Polish team during qualifying but was left off the tournament roster by head coach Pawel Janas. During Tomasz's time at Wisla, he was able to help the team to 5 Polish Championship titles. Playing for Wisla from 1998 until 2005, Tomasz appeared in 173 matches for the Polish side and was top scorer in the Orange Ekstraklasa (Polish First Division) 3 times, including his last season with Wisla in 2005. Overall, Tomasz was able to find the net 115 times in his 8 years with Wisla, averaging 2 goals every 3 games.
In 2001, Tomasz was a part of the Wisla team which played in the 2001 UEFA Cup and European Cup. In the UEFA Cup, Tomasz was able to score 2 goals in a win against Real Zaragoza, but Wisla later lost to Inter Milan and was knocked out of the tournament. In the European cup, Wisla was again knocked out, this time by Barcelona. Against the Spanish side, Tomasz was able to score a goal when he was able to follow up on a deflected shot and put a goal past the Barca keeper to give Wisla a 3-2 lead. Since leaving Wilsa Krakow, Tomasz has played for 3 different teams before joining the Chicago Fire. Between his time at Wisla and MLS, Tomasz has played in 49 games and has scored 11 goals. His low numbers are due partially to the fact that he has had trouble in the past 2 years with injuries, including a knee injury in 2007 and other minor groin injuries. Since his debut with the Fire on March 29th 2008, Tomasz has played in 6 games for the Fire and has started 5 of them. On April 3rd 2008, Tomasz was able to get both his first and second MLS goals when he scored twice against the visiting New England Revolution in just his second MLS game. A player with the ability to find space, Tomasz seems to be a perfect compliment to Fire teammate Chad Barrett and is hopefully going to be on the receiving end of a number of Cuauhtemoc Blanco long balls this season.
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