ŁKS Łódź II

The reserves have no rivals of their own. Whatever they inherit comes from the parent club, and in the lower Łódź divisions where they spent most of the past decade the opponents were parish sides who had never met a name of that size. That was the point of the exercise: after the bankruptcy of ŁKS Łódź the second team stopped playing altogether for three seasons, and when it was put back together in 2015 it was entered at the eighth tier, in Klasa B, with no shortcut back.

The climb took eight years and five titles. Klasa B in 2016, Klasa A the season after, then the district class, the fourth division in 2021 and the third in 2023 — promotion in most seasons they contested, until the side reached the second division, the third level of Polish football.

Marcin Matysiak took the reserves in 2020 and had them in the second division by the time he left in 2023, which is where the interesting part begins: he then moved up to take charge of the first team. The traffic runs the other way too. Adam Ratajczyk and Piotr Pyrdoł were sold on to Legia Warsaw; Aleksander Bobek kept goal here before his senior debut in 2022. Recovering first-teamers and those left out of the Ekstraklasa squad turn up in the line-up most weeks.

Home is the club academy on Krańcowa, a training base with room for a thousand. Only the Polish Cup drags them across the city to the main ground, and in 2024/25 it dragged them twice — Radunia Stężyca beaten 2:1 in the last 64, Świt Szczecin next.

Last season ended in relegation from the second division. They begin 2026/27 back in the third, in the first group, where they were champions three years ago.