Paweł Janas

Club

He began his playing career for the Włókniarz Pabianice team in 1965, but later left the club in 1973.

National team

From 1976 to 1984, he won 53 international caps for Poland. Janas played at centre-back in all seven of Poland's games at the 1982 World Cup in Spain where the team achieved an unexpected third place.

Janas' coaching career started as an assistant at Legia Warsaw in 1988. He later ended his work at Legia in 1990, and took up a post helping Władysław Stachurski lead the Polish youth squad. He was assistant to Janusz Wójcik at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona where Poland won the silver medal. In the same year he again became Wójcik's assistant, this time at Legia. From 1994 to 1996, Janas was the head coach at Legia where he and his team won the league title (1993–94, 1994–95), Polish Cup (1994, 1995), Polish Super Cup (1994), as well as advanced to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions' Cup (1995–96 season). From 1996 to 1999, Janas coached the Poland Olympic national team, which advanced to the quarter-finals of the European Championships. From 1999, he worked as the manager and vice-president of sports at Amica Wronki until 2002. On 20 December 2002, he officially took charge of the Poland national team. He was heavily criticized in the beginning of his national team spell, despite achieving good results. Nonetheless, under Janas the Poland team qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, finishing second in a qualifying group behind England. They qualified as the best second placed team, scoring 27 goals in the qualifiers, 10 more than the group leaders England. In the final tournament, Poland were drawn with Ecuador, hosts Germany and Costa Rica. Their first game, against Ecuador in Gelsenkirchen, ended in a disappointing 2–0 defeat, and Janas received criticism…

International

Player

Legia Warsaw

Polish Cup: 1979–80, 1980–81 Poland

FIFA World Cup third place: 1982

Manager

Legia Warsaw

Ekstraklasa: 1993–94, 1994–95 Polish Cup: 1993–94, 1994–95 Polish Super Cup: 1994 Widzew Łódź

I liga: 2008–09, 2009–10 Individual

Polish Manager of the Year: 1994, 1995, 2004, 2005