Polish Cup Final on Saturday. Górnik Zabrze plays Raków Częstochowa, Polonia in the USA watches live on TVP Polonia

The broadcast is announced by Telewizja Polska – on TVP1, TVP Polonia, TVP Sport, and on tvpsport.pl, mobile app, Smart TV, and HbbTV. The match will be commentated by Mateusz Borek and Grzegorz Mielcarski. For Polonia in the United States, this means a Saturday morning with one of the most important matches of the Polish club season – coffee in one hand, remote in the other, while the Warsaw evening slowly falls over PGE Narodowy.

What kind of match is this?

The Polish Cup final is one of the two biggest prizes in the domestic football season, alongside the Ekstraklasa championship. The 2025/2026 season is the seventy-second edition of these competitions, whose tradition dates back to the 1925/1926 season. The winner of Saturday’s final at PGE Narodowy will not only receive the prestigious trophy but also the right to play in the UEFA Europa League qualifiers in the 2026/2027 season. The stakes are therefore double – national fame and a window to Europe.

Górnik Zabrze and Raków Częstochowa are two clubs with very different histories. Górnik – one of the most successful clubs in Polish football, fourteen-time Polish champion, six-time Polish Cup winner – last won the Polish Cup in 1972. Fifty-four years of hiatus. This year’s final is an opportunity for Zabrze to break this long drought and return to the Polish football elite.

Raków Częstochowa is a story from the other side. For decades, the club was stuck in the Ekstraklasa’s background – even in 2001–2005, it played in the fourth league. Promotion to the Ekstraklasa in 2019 initiated dynamic development. Polish Championship in the 2022/2023 season, two-time Polish Cup winner (2021 and 2022), vice-champion in the 2024/2025 season, fourth place after the autumn round of this campaign, and second place in the group stage of the UEFA Europa Conference League. In December 2025, coach Marek Papszun, who led Raków to the Polish elite, left for Legia Warsaw. His place was taken on December 22, 2025, by Łukasz Tomczyk, the former coach of Polonia Bytom. Saturday’s final is Tomczyk’s first serious test in his new role.

When to watch in the United States

For Polonia in the United States, the match start times are as follows. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and the entire East Coast (EDT) – 10:00 AM. In Chicago, Detroit, Houston, and the Central Time Zone (CDT) – 9:00 AM. In Denver and Phoenix (MDT) – 8:00 AM. In Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and on the West Coast (PDT) – 7:00 AM. The pre-match studio begins at 3:30 PM Warsaw time (i.e., 9:30 AM EDT) on TVP Sport and tvpsport.pl, and the television broadcast on TVP1 and TVP Polonia will start around 3:55 PM (i.e., around 9:55 AM EDT). Guests of hosts Jacek Kurowski and Kacper Tomczyk will be Jakub Wawrzyniak, Robert Podoliński, and Michał Zachodny.

Polonia in the United States has several options for receiving the signal. TVP Polonia is sometimes available in selected Polish diaspora packages and with some IPTV operators in the States – it’s worth checking availability with your TV provider. Online streaming should be available on the TVP Sport website and the TVP Sport mobile app, although availability outside Poland may depend on broadcast rights and user location. Many Polish clubs and restaurants in Chicago, New York, and Detroit organize joint match viewings in club rooms – it’s worth checking the offer of local Polish Community Centers and football clubs.

What determines the outcome

Górnik Zabrze comes to Warsaw after a cup success they have been waiting for fifty-four years – they last won the Polish Cup in 1972. The club is not among the strongest financially in the Ekstraklasa, but it has one of the loudest fan stands in Poland, and the

Raków arrives as the favorite on paper – they have European competitions behind them, a larger budget, and a deeper squad. But the loss of coach Papszun in December, who was the main architect of the club’s successes, created some uncertainty in the team. In the spring, Raków played inconsistently. However, cup competitions are a good place for the Częstochowa club – they won the Polish Cup twice in a row, in 2021 and 2022. Coach Tomczyk knows that a win on May 2 would be the best possible way to start a new era for the club under his leadership.

PGE Narodowy

The stadium where the final will take place is PGE Narodowy in Warsaw – an arena built for the 2012 European Championship, accommodating over 58,000 spectators. For ten years, the stadium has been a permanent venue for Polish Cup finals. Interest in Saturday’s match is very high. Many fans of both clubs will come to Warsaw from Poland and abroad, including from the United Kingdom, where Polish emigrants have created the largest group of Polish football fans in Europe outside Poland since 2004.

For American Polonia, Saturday’s final is an opportunity to stop for two hours in front of the screen and think about the place where it all began. PGE Narodowy stands in Warsaw on the Vistula River, in the place where the 10th-Anniversary Stadium stood before the war. Polish football, Polish coffee, a Polish Saturday morning in a Polish community home. Sometimes that’s enough.

Editorial Staff, Voice of Polonia in the USA

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