Germany’s Braunschweig New Yorker Lions sign top Polish WR Patryk Matkowski

The Braunschweig New Yorker Lions, winners of four of the last five German Football League championships, continue to scour Europe for talent and have signed one of the top wide receivers in Europe and Poland’s leading wideout Patryk Matkowski.

The 6’2″, 181 lb 23 year old from Wroclaw, Poland, has been a mainstay on his hometown Panthers team and a key to the team’s back-to-back Polish titles in 2016 and 2017. Matkowski has also been an anchor on Team Poland. Matkowski will join fellow Wroclaw native and mentor Lukasz Omelanczuk, who first coached his young protege in flag football.

Matkowski began playing football at the age of 15 in Wroclaw, a hotbed of football in Poland and joined the Panthers youth flag football team. By 17 he was practicing with the then Polish first division team, the Wroclaw Crew, learning the nuances of the game from Mark Philmore (Northwestern University, Chicago Bears). Moving from the Crew to the Giants which became the Panthers, Matkowski continued to grow and develop. In his three seasons with the Panthers, he hauled in 16 touchdown passes on over 1,000 yards receiving helping the Panthers not only to win the Polish title in 2016 and 2017 but also the IFAF Europe Champions League crown in 2016.

As a key member of the Polish national team, Matkowski has played in several international games including a historic win against Belgium where he scored two touchdowns. It was the first-ever international victory for Team Poland.

In addition, in 2016 Matkowski was given the chance to compete against a selection of American college players for Team Europe in the Euro-American Challenge game in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.