Jagiellonia Bialystok were a respectable Polish side without much of a reputation for producing talent. Founded by reserve-battalion soldiers in Bialystok in 1920, they had rarely turned out a steady stream of prospects, and they were not the club you looked to for the next big Polish name. That made the 2019/20 season stand out, because they were suddenly developing a young and talented player named Patryk Klimala. He was 21 at the time, and he was the reason I started paying real attention to the club.
Player profile | Patryk Klimala
Date of Birth: 5 August 1998
Place of Birth: Swidnica, Poland
Nationality: Poland
Height: 183cm
Position: Centre forward
Preferred Foot: Right
Who was Patryk Klimala back then
Klimala made his Jagiellonia debut on 25 September 2016, coming on in the 92nd minute against Korona Kielce for Przemyslaw Frankowski. He picked up two more late cameos against Lech Poznan and Arka Gdynia to close that season, then got his first start against Piast Gliwice, playing 63 minutes before being replaced by Karol Sanderski in a 2-1 win. His European bow followed against Rio Ave on 27 July 2018. By the time I profiled him he had made 48 appearances for Jagiellonia and scored 11 goals as a centre forward, which is a decent hit rate for a player still finding his feet.
His style back then
Klimala showed the traits of a proper number nine. People threw Lewandowski and Dzeko comparisons at him, which was heavy praise, but the reference points made sense. He was a natural finisher who buried a good share of his chances, covered a lot of ground, and dragged games in his direction leading the attack. He was genuinely enjoyable to watch, and I remember thinking a bigger stage was coming sooner rather than later.
Strengths and gaps
At 183cm he was a real aerial handful, clinical in the box and happy to dribble past a marker when the moment called for it. He was strong, well balanced off the ball, with good positioning and a high work rate, and he could even clear his lines against an opposition set piece. The gaps were the usual striker gaps. His defending was thin, so man-marking and tackling were not his game, his set-piece influence going forward was limited, and his vision to set up others was not sharp. None of it worried me much. Those are the parts a good coach and the right teammates tend to fix over time.
The 2019/20 season
He started that campaign as a rotation option and worked his way into the first eleven. In a Jagiellonia side sitting 9th, scoring 3 with 3 assists across 16 matches at 21 was a strong return, and he backed it up with the Poland U21s, scoring 2 in 5. It was a real jump from the previous couple of years, when he had been in and out of the side. His route there was not smooth either. He had started out as a full-back at Legia Warsaw, an experiment that never took, before Jagiellonia spotted a striker where others had tried to make him a defender. He scored 17 in 9 for their U19s and made his first senior appearance in the same 2016/17 season. A loan at Wigry Suwalki, where he scored 13 with 2 assists in 27 in the Polish second tier, was the season that convinced them, and by 2018/19 he had stapled his name in as a rotation striker.
The call I got wrong
Here is one I will happily own. In December 2019 I had him valued around 500 thousand and sketched out his next move by scenario. A steady season kept him in Poland with Pogon Szczecin. A good one had him in the Championship or back at Legia Warsaw. A very good one, and I had him going to Italy, specifically Hellas Verona. My actual prediction was that he would light it up and sign for Verona. I even said we would not hear his name in 2020/21 and that 2021/22 would be his year. The move came fast, but not to Italy, and the shape of his career looked nothing like my forecast. That is the honest risk of calling a 21-year-old's ceiling.
Where is he now
Instead of Verona, Klimala went to Celtic, then crossed the Atlantic to New York Red Bulls, where he had his most productive stretch. Since then his path has taken him back to Poland and on to South Korea. Here is the career our data holds:
| Season | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020/21 | Celtic | 17 | 3 |
| 2021/22 | New York Red Bulls | 30 | 8 |
| 2022/23 | New York Red Bulls | 29 | 5 |
| 2023/24 | Slask Wroclaw | 11 | 0 |
| 2025/26 | FC Seoul | 4 | 0 |
For the current ratings and the full log, see our Patryk Klimala scout report. He never became the Serie A star I pencilled in, and Verona was never in the story. But his best New York numbers, 8 and 5 goals in back-to-back MLS seasons, proved the finisher I saw was real. I was reading the right player and just pointing him at the wrong country.
