ŁKS Łódź

ŁKS Łódź spent the 2022–23 season in the I liga, the club's second such title after 2010–11, and with it the return to the Ekstraklasa. The climb back took six seasons — third tier in 2014, second in 2017, I liga in 2018, top flight in 2019.

The club that dropped that far had been Polish champion twice, in 1958 and again in 1997–98, and had won the Puchar Polski in 1956–57. The older of the two league titles came at the end of a decade in which the club was barely itself: from 1949 to 1956 the reorganisation of sport under the People's Republic merged it with textile works clubs, renamed it ŁKS Włókniarz and put it in green. The white and red came back with the name in 1956.

Jan Tomaszewski kept goal here for 14 seasons, from 1967 to 1981, the middle of which made him the man England could not beat at Wembley on the way to Poland's fourth place at the 1974 World Cup. Kazimierz Deyna started at ŁKS and left; Tomaszewski stayed.

Home is the Stadion Miejski im. Władysława Króla, 18,029 seats.

What the city cares about is the derby. Widzew leads the head-to-head: 30 wins to 20, with 29 draws.