Barcelona has opened a football school (szkoła piłki nożnej) in Poland to help develop talented young players (utalentowanych młodych graczy) from the country.

Program director Xevi Marce and former defender Julio Alberto Moreno announced the opening of the Warsaw school at a news conference on Thursday, in the presence of around a dozen recruited boys, who were wearing the club’s colors.

Some 1,000 children aged between six and 12 are to train at four sites in the capital. The best ones will have a chance to continue in Spain, where the sport is at much higher level than in Poland.

Poland and Ukraine will co-host the 2012 European Championship.

 “We’ve been working on the project for a year now. Barca feel that Poland is a good place to open this kind of school because of its infrastructure and the upcoming Euro 2012,” Warsaw city sports advisor Wiesław Wilczynski told AFP.

“Thanks to FC Barcelona and their know-how, we will have the best training for our coaches as well as our junior players.”Barca already run similar schools in six countries across the globe including Peru, Japan and Egypt.

However, the Warsaw facility will be the first of its kind in Europe outside Spain.

Football is the most popular sport in Poland. Over 400,000 Poles play football regularly, with millions more playing occasionally. The first professional clubs were founded in the early 1900s, and the Polish national football team played its first international match in 1921.

There are hundreds of professional and amateur football teams in Poland; which are organized into the national 1st league, 2nd level, 2 regional 3rd levels, 18 regional 4th levels, 49 regional 5th leagues and a variety of other lower level leagues. Additionally, there are the Polish Cup (Puchar Polski) and Polish Supercup (Superpuchar Polski) competitions.

On the 18th of April 2007 the President of UEFA, Michel Platini, announced that the hosts of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship will be Poland and Ukraine. Both countries automatically qualify for the event and are preparing for the historic event.

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)