Lakers

At the AZS UWM stadium, the Lakers turn out — a ground shared with the wider student sports association rather than one built for them alone. The pitch is not glamorous, but it is theirs, marked out among the university's running tracks and training fields.

The team formed in 2010 as an offshoot of the Olsztyn university sports club, AZS UWM. American football was not a sport with any local tradition to draw on, and for years the Lakers built a squad from scratch, learning the game as much as playing it.

That patience paid off in 2022, when the club won the PFL2 title, the second tier of the Polish Football League — the clearest marker yet that the years spent assembling a roster in a city with no gridiron history had produced a team capable of winning something.

Recent seasons have pitted them against sides such as the Golden Eagles and the Buffaloes, opponents drawn from the same amateur circuit the Lakers have spent over a decade climbing.