Zukowski had suffered the injury while still at his previous club, Slask Wroclaw. FCM had initially wanted to avoid a transfer. However, after last season’s top scorer Martijn Kaars (19 goals) joined FC St. Pauli in a club-record deal worth four million euros, the club moved to sign Zukowski for 250,000 euros on the penultimate day of the window, calling him a “signing for the future” despite his injury. (sporting director Otmar Schork).
The move was unusual, not only because Zukowski missed the first eight matches of the season while recovering and had scored only five goals in 132 previous appearances. FCM never intended to use him as a striker: throughout his career, Zukowski had operated mainly as a right-back, a role that had taken him from Lechia Gdańsk to Rangers in 2022 for €600,000.
He struggled to break into the first team, made only one appearance, and after seven months returned to Poland on loan at Lech Poznań. Almost three years ago, Wroclaw pounced to re-sign him. Overall, Zukowski has 105 top-flight appearances in his homeland, but 52 of those came as a substitute.