2. His boyhood hero was Italy's No1
Łukasz Fabiański’s football hero as a boy was Italy international goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca.
Born in Bologna, Pagliuca kept goal for Sampdoria, Inter Milan and Bologna during the time when Italy’s Serie A was arguably the best in the world in the late 1980s and 1990s.
He was also Italy’s first-choice goalkeeper when his national team were runners-up at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which the nine-year-old Fabiański watched on television at his home in Poland.
By strange coincidence, Pagliuca is the second-best penalty-stopper in Serie A history, with 24 spot-kicks saved, while Fabiański is the second-best penalty-stopper in Premier League history, with 12 saved!
3. He went on trial at two Premier League clubs
Łukasz Fabiański went on trial to Premier League clubs Southampton and Arsenal at the age of 17, impressing Saints manager Gordon Strachan and Gunners boss Arsène Wenger.
The goalkeeper was one of four youngsters from the MSP Szamotuły football academy who went to England with the hope of earning a contract.
Fabiański returned to Poland and signed for top-flight club Lech Poznań at the age of 19 in 2004. After making one Polish Cup appearance in a 4-1 win over Arka Gdynia in October 2004, he signed for the country’s biggest club, Legia Warsaw, in the summer of 2005.
He ultimately signed for Arsenal and Wenger in the summer of 2007, at the age of 22.