Ludovic Obraniak

Ludovic Joseph Obraniak ([luˈdɔvʲik ɔˈbraɲak]; born 10 November 1984) is a French former footballer of Polish descent. He primarily played as an attacking midfielder. He represented the Poland national team.

FC Metz

Obraniak began his football career with his local club FC Metz. Due to his consistent play in the reserves, he was quickly promoted to the senior side by then-manager Jean Fernandez making his debut during the 2003–04 season in a 0–2 loss to Bordeaux coming on as a late-match substitute wearing the number 13 shirt. Over the next two years, Metz showed their inconsistent play finishing 16th in 2004–05 and finishing dead bottom of the table in 2005–06, thus being relegated. Obraniak was the primary bright spot in the squad appearing in 61 matches and scoring 3 goals over those years.

With Metz in Ligue 2, several Ligue 1 clubs drew their interest over to Obraniak. Despite this, he still played half the season in Ligue 2 with Metz appearing in 20 matches and scoring 2 goals. The following winter would see his departure. After weeks of silent negotiating, Metz finally came to an agreement on 23 January 2007 with the Nord-Pas de Calais-based side Lille OSC. Metz received €1.2 million, as well as the Swiss striker Daniel Gygax.

Lille OSC

Obraniak agreed to a four-year contract keeping him with the club until 2010. He made his debut with Lille four days later coming on substitute in a match against Bordeaux. He played in every remaining match that season, making on and off starts and substitute appearances. With Lille playing in the UEFA Champions League that season, he appeared in both legs of their knockout stage match against Manchester United. The following season, Obraniak had a solid season appearing in 35 matches and scoring 2 goals, though Lille finished out of Europe in the league standings. For the 2008–09 season, he got off to a fast start scoring 7 goals in only 16 appearances contributing to Lille's 5th-place position heading into the winter break. In later seasons, he was not a regular starter and decided to leave the club.

Bordeaux

On 12 January 2012, Obraniak signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with Ligue 1 outfit Bordeaux. In February, he scored two goals in a 5–4 away win against his former club Lille, including the winning goal in injury time.

Werder Bremen

In January 2014, Obraniak left France for the first time of his career and moved to German Bundesliga club Werder Bremen. He signed for two and a half years until summer 2016 and the transfer fee was believed to be €2 million. Prior to his decision for Werder, he consulted fellow Frenchman Johan Micoud who have had a great spell in Bremen in the 2000s. However, his time in Bremen didn't become a success. After his signing he was a regular for eight matches but then he apparently lost favor with head coach Robin Dutt. Following Dutt's sacking in October 2014 he raised vainly hopes of improving his situation, also being left out of the squad in almost official matches under new coach Viktor Skrypnyk.

Çaykur Rizespor

In January 2015, he was loaned to Turkish Super Lig club Çaykur Rizespor for the remainder of the season. Bremen granted them also a buy-out option for summer 2015. He made his league debut against Galatasaray on 25 January 2015.

Maccabi Haifa

On 27 August 2015, he signed for Israeli Premier League giants Maccabi Haifa, After passing a medical test, he signed a 2-year contract worth €400,000 per year. On 12 September, Obraniak made his debut against Bnei Sakhnin FC.

On 24 May 2016, he scored the winning goal in the 2015–16 Israel State Cup final, against Maccabi Tel Aviv. On 17 August 2016, Obraniak was released from Maccabi Haifa after one year.

Retirement

On October 4, 2018 he announced his retirement from football.

Obraniak made an appearance for the France under-21 squad; however, since it was not a match for points FIFA did not consider him permanently capped. This was later confirmed by FIFA's decision to remove the age limit on nationality switches of players who had only been capped at youth level.

Due to having Polish roots through his grandfather, Zygmunt Obraniak who was from Pobiedziska in Poznań County, the player became the subject of interest from the Poland national football team and applied for citizenship of the country. Since his grandfather had never renounced Polish citizenship, according to Polish laws Obraniak's citizenship did not need to be granted by the Polish government but simply verified by the Masovian voivode. Obraniak was confirmed as a Polish citizen on 5 June 2009.

On 23 July 2009, he was officially called up to the Poland team by coach Leo Beenhakker for the squad's friendly against Greece, where Obraniak scored the second goal in the match making the final score a 2–0 victory for Poland.

He played in all 3 games for Poland at Euro 2012. He assisted Jakub Błaszczykowski's superb equalizing goal against Russia which finished a 1–1 draw.

Obraniak's daughter was born on 1 June 2011.

Obraniak is fluent in French and English. Despite representing Poland on an international level he doesn't speak Polish fluently.

As of 5 August 2018

Club

International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1.	12 August 2009	Bydgoszcz, Poland	Greece	2–0	2–0	Friendly
2.	12 October 2010	Montreal, Canada	Ecuador	2–1	2–2
3.	17 November 2010	Poznań, Poland	Ivory Coast	2–1	3–1
4.	2 June 2012	Warsaw, Poland	Andorra	1–0	4–0
5.	14 November 2012	Gdańsk, Poland	Uruguay	1–2	1–3

Club

Lille

• Ligue 1: 2010–11
• Coupe de France: 2010–11

Bordeaux

• Coupe de France: 2012–13

Maccabi Haifa

• Israel State Cup: 2015–16

Individual

• Coupe de France Final Man of the Match: 2011