Robert Lewandowski wanted the Barça armband. He had already achieved it at Bayern, where he had been part of the team council, a simile to the group of captains; of course, also in the Polish national team, in which he acts as a leader in the locker room and on the field. However, when Busquets and Jordi Alba left Barça, no one in the Barça group thought about Lewandowski. And he had the approval of the coaching staff: Xavi and his collaborators valued the striker’s professionalism in each training session. “It is a pleasure to see him work,” they summarized, at the time, from the staff. “The coach always makes an example of him,” one of Lewandowski’s teammates at the Camp Nou responded, mockingly. Between the admiration of the coaches and the suspicion of the dressing room, the Pole found a common support, the same as always in his career: the goal. He closed his first season at Barça with 33 goals in 46 games.
Despite their scoring success, the Barça group chose De Jong and Araujo to replace Busquets and Alba. “Robert is a special guy. He goes to the ball from him, but he doesn’t surprise us. From what they tell us, he was already the same at Bayern and Dortmund,” explains the same voice from the locker room. However, when Xavi announced that he was saying goodbye to Barça at the end of the season, the Polish striker raised his voice. On the 9th he joined the rest of the group leaders and, together, they agreed that they had to have a meal to strengthen the group. The meeting, in which only the players participated, took place at the Pole’s home. “He is the one with the biggest house,” jokes an employee of the Barcelona entity. “Seriously: he has shown himself to be more committed.”
In 2024, Lewandowski has scored eight goals, four in the last three games. That is, more than half of his goals (15), he scored in the last month and a half. He has woken up at a key moment for Barça: in the run-up to the round of 16 against Naples in the Champions League. “Lewandowski’s goals come because he is playing better. There is no secret. He doesn’t leave the area that much. “Robert has taken a spectacular step forward,” said Xavi, after the victory against Celta. The Pole, precisely, had been one of the most critical of the coach. “He has never bothered us. We know what he is like. And what he has complained about, if he believed that this thing or that should be done, he has told us to our faces. He goes straight ahead,” they say in the staff.
Lewandowski, in any case, knew he needed to react. His difficult character, added to his high salary (he is the one who earns the most in the squad in a club that is not overflowing with fairplay financial), had put his name in the sports management target. The Pole’s entourage understood that the entity could begin a destabilization campaign to get him to leave Barça at the end of the season, just as they had done two seasons ago with De Jong. Like the Dutchman back then, Lewandowski is also clear about his future. “We don’t want to move from Barcelona,” they emphasize from those around the 9. He has two more seasons left on his contract. His senior year, however, is tied to his performance next year.
With or without an armband, near or far from the locker room, more or less critical of Xavi, both sides of Lewandowski defend themselves with goals. The usual story in his career.
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