Wojciech Szczęsny

Legia Warsaw

Szczęsny trained at Agrykola Warsaw as a young player; soon, Legia Warsaw's goalkeeping coach, Krzysztof Dowhań, was so impressed with the young keeper, he allowed him to take part in a training camp with Legia's first team at the age of 15, joining them afterwards.

Arsenal

In January 2006, Szczęsny joined the Arsenal youth set-up, progressing to the reserve team during the 2008–09 season. In November 2008, he lost his balance while lifting a heavy weight and both his forearms were fractured, causing him to miss five months. Szczęsny appeared on the first-team bench for the first time during the Premier League match against Stoke City on 24 May 2009, remaining unused as the team concluded their season with a 4–1 victory at the Emirates Stadium. At the start of the 2009–10 season, Szczęsny was promoted to the senior squad and given the number 53. On 22 September 2009, he made his first-team debut in the Football League Cup third round, keeping a clean sheet in a 2–0 home win against West Bromwich Albion. In December 2009, manager Arsène Wenger revealed that he and the rest of Arsenal's coaching staff had high hopes for Szczęsny, saying, "We have identified Wojciech as a future great, great goalkeeper." A month later, he added, "I really believe in him that he will one day be Arsenal's number one. He has all the qualities you want from a goalkeeper."

Brentford (loan)

On 20 November 2009, Szczęsny joined League One team Brentford on a…

Under-21

Szczęsny played for Poland's under-21 team and started in three 2011 European Championship qualifying matches. He was also placed on stand-by for the Polish senior team by manager Leo Beenhakker for the team's World Cup qualifiers against Northern Ireland and Slovenia in early September 2009. Since none of Poland's top three goalkeepers dropped out, however, he was not called up and instead played the U-21 qualifiers against Spain and Finland. He has a total of six caps for the U-21 squad.

Senior team

Early senior career

In October 2009, new manager Franciszek Smuda sent Szczęsny his first call up to the full national side, for the friendly matches against Romania and Canada. He made his debut against Canada on 18 November, coming on as a half-time substitute for Tomasz Kuszczak in a 1–0 victory at the Zdzislawa Krzyszkowiaka Stadium in Bydgoszcz. He earned his second cap and his first full match on 9 February 2011, in another friendly win of the same score, against Norway at the Estádio Algarve. Szczęsny had a strong performance against Germany on 6 September 2011, making eight critical saves in a 2–2 draw; this earned him praise from former German international goalkeeper Oliver Kahn. He was sent off in the opening game of Poland's co-hosting of UEFA Euro 2012 against Greece, for a professional foul on Dimitris Salpingidis, costing Poland a penalty which was saved by Przemysław Tytoń in a 1–1 draw. Szczęsny failed to play again for…

During his time with Arsenal, Szczęsny earned a reputation as a tall, promising, and talented goalkeeper, who possessed significant athleticism, as well as strong reflexes, agility, shot-stopping abilities, distribution, and a good mentality, but who was also inconsistent; as such, he occasionally came under criticism in the media over technical mistakes or errors in judgement, in particular on crosses, and for his lack of development during his time with the club, as well as his lack of discipline off the pitch, including an incident in which he was reportedly fined by the club after being caught smoking in the showers. Regarding Szczęsny's error–prone performances during his time in England, former Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman commented in 2013 that the Polish keeper needed to become stronger mentally in order to retain his place in the first team. During his time in Italy, after producing a series of mixed performances during his first season with Roma, Szczęsny established himself as one of the best goalkeepers in Serie A during his second season with the team, and subsequently also maintained a consistently high level of performance with Juventus. In 2016, Szczęsny's former Arsenal manager Wenger labelled him a "world-class" goalkeeper. Following his move to the Turin side in 2017, Szczęsny credited the manner in which the role of the goalkeeper is prepared and coached in Italy as one of the reasons for his drastic improvement, citing his Roma manager – Spalletti –…

Szczęsny was born in Warsaw. He is the son of Maciej Szczęsny, who was also a professional goalkeeper, having played for Legia Warsaw, Widzew Łódź, Polonia Warsaw and Wisła Kraków, along with seven games for the Poland national team. His brother Jan (born 1987) is also a goalkeeper.