Pietuszewski was born in Białystok, Poland in May 2008, and after showing early promise with a ball at his feet, he was drafted into the city’s Talent Football Academy at the tender age of six. From the outset, it was obvious to Pietuszewski’s first coach, Rafal Muczynski, that he had something special about him.
“I remember when I first saw him on the field. He stood out for his dynamism, speed, and physical strength compared to his team-mates,” Muczynski recently told Dragon Portal. “He loved to dribble and face opponents one-on-one. And he loved football, loved playing, you could feel that training was the most important thing in the world for him.”
At that stage, Pietuszewski was already testing himself in the year bracket above his own, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
“I remember he had vision problems and played with glasses, these Edgar Davids-style goggles. When we didn’t win, they would fog up, but you could see Oskar crying,” Muczynski recalled in an interview with Polish outlet Weszlo. “Sometimes after a match, he would throw something in the locker room out of rage. When things didn’t go his way, he acted like he wanted to destroy the world.”
Still, the good outweighed the bad, and Pietuszeweski soon received an offer to join Jagiellonia’s youth system, where Muczynski continued as his trainer over the next seven years with some oversight from club legend Ryszard Karalus. Pietuszewski immediately endeared himself to Karalus, who saw his aggression as a positive.
“He was a brawler, a bit of a bully. He liked to hit back on the pitch,” Karalus added to Weszlo. “I think his behaviour was influenced by the fact that his father was absent from his home. He was raised by his mother. He had a need for some male authority and a bit of rebellion, but that also made him fearless and gave him that personality.”
By 2022, Pietuszewski was showing signs that he would soon be ready for senior football, finishing as top scorer in Poland’s U14 championship of Poland before netting a memorable hat-trick to give Jagiellonia a 3-1 win over Cracovia in the U17 Central Junior League (CLJ). But little did he know, disaster was just around the corner.
