From shame to pride - inside Europe's most exciting league
The table is so tight that the title race and the fight to survive relegation looks like going to the wire, with teams battling for Europe still also looking over their shoulder at the relegation zone. Just 15 points separate leaders Lech Poznan (44 points) from 17th-placed Widzew Lodz (29), who are one place off the bottom and in the drop zone with three teams facing relegation. Motor Lublin sum it up: seventh place, seven points off the top, but also just seven above relegation.
Even beyond the league, the wonderful chaos remains - this season's Polish Cup quarter-finals featured sides from the third and fourth tiers. How did this extraordinary competitiveness happen? Is there anything to learn for other leagues out of the top six in Europe, with financial difficulties to compete?
While Poland's national team missed out on World Cup qualification with defeat by Sweden in Tuesday's play-offs, Guillem Balague looks at why their domestic football scene is flourishing again and whether it can last long term. Legia Warsaw won the Polish Super Cup in July but are now only out of the relegation zone on goal difference Poland has been described as Europe's "growth champion". , external Its economy is now the 20th largest in the world, with an annual output of more than $1tn (£751bn).
The progress in its footballing ambition has grown commensurately alongside this economic boom. Poland as a footballing nation has been much more successful in the past but, after some recent dark times, there are real signs of hope again for their domestic league. Michal Kolodziejczyk, head of sports for Canal+, the broadcaster and main sponsor of the Ekstraklasa, said: "Polish football was great in the seventies and eighties.
"Our fathers remember Poland as the third team in the world in 1974 and 1982. In the communist era, players couldn't go abroad to play. "A great national team was built.