GOAL MACHINE Dominic King
It’s 410 goals and counting for humble superstar Lewandowski … and Chelsea are in his sights
He puts his remarkable physique down to eating steak for breakfast and saying no to cake There was a meeting with Sam Allardyce that almost took him from Poznan to Blackburn
THE best place to start is with the iPad and a beaming smile. Robert Lewandowski is sitting in a studio at Bayern Munich’s training ground when he is asked to go back in time with the help of a two-minute video clip.
It is not something Europe’s premier No 9 expected but, quickly, he comes to life. The footage, from April 2013, is of him waging a one-man war against Real Madrid for Borussia Dortmund, when he scored four goals in a Champions League semi-final.
‘Ah!’ he says, his eyes fixed on the screen. ‘I’m very proud of this game! When you do something like that to Real, you should be very proud. I remember I felt so good, so very strong. The third goal (a stunning finish after changing his feet) is my favourite. I just wanted to do what I do best. Score.’
He has done that all his life. Given the exploits of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, it perhaps doesn’t get appreciated what a machine Lewandowski has been during their era. His career tally — after finding the net twice last night including the winner in a 3-2 victory over Paderborn — stands at 410 and Chelsea, next week in the Champions League last 16, are firmly in his sights.
He is very much the humble superstar and the hour we spend together is informative to the point of being an education. When players reach his level of fame and adulation, it can distort their characters but Lewandowski — who puts his remarkable athletic physique down to eating steak for breakfast and saying no to cake — is refreshingly down to earth.
He arrives for our meeting alone and even though he speaks fluent English, feels the need to apologise for the quality of his language. He clearly has a dry sense of humour, too, as he says with a wink at one point: ‘Maybe it will improve when I come to the Premier League!’
If only. The Pole is 31 and flecks of grey are starting to pepper his jet black hair. His age and the fact he is happily settled in Bavaria with his wife Anna and baby daughter Klara suggests a move to England will never materialise.
It has not been for the want of trying. There was a meeting with Sam Allardyce in April 2010 that almost took the then Lech Poznan forward to Blackburn Rovers and two years later there was a phone call that showed the seriousness of Manchester United’s intent.
‘It’s difficult to say when exactly I was close to moving there because every year there was something that was maybe going to happen,’ reflects Lewandowski.
‘I remember (the closest I came). Sir Alex Ferguson called. Could I understand him? Yeah! It wasn’t too bad! I was speaking with him after two years at Dortmund. At that time, I was really thinking about a move to Manchester United. For a young player, it was something amazing. That was a special day for me. I spoke to Dortmund afterwards. They said “No” — and that was that.’
When Ferguson called, Lewandowski had just scored 30 goals to help Dortmund retain the Bundesliga under manager Jurgen Klopp. He and Klopp remain in contact and Lewandowski plans to get his old boss something if — or, rather, when — Liverpool win the Premier League.
It would, you suspect, be the least he could do. There are more smiles as he recounts in detail how he ended up fleecing Klopp as he embraced the challenge of fulfilling his talent. Training sessions became expensive for the manager when the penny dropped on what Lewandowski could achieve.
‘We bet that if I score 10 goals then Jurgen gives me 50 euros,’ he says. ‘I remember the first training sessions, I scored three or four. Then after five, six, seven sessions I scored seven or eight. After three months I scored more like 10 in every training session. After a few weeks, Jurgen said: “No more! It’s too much for me.
I don’t want to pay you any more!” That was part of my mentality to be focused on every training session. That was very helpful for me. And good in another way! Before I met Jurgen, I had a lot of problems with my body language. ‘He told me sometimes he didn’t know if I was angry or happy. It didn’t matter what was happening, my body language was the same. Jurgen said: “Sometimes you have to be angry! Sometimes your actions should be more expressive!” I had to change. That was under Jurgen.’ The bond they have is obvious but so is the respect for Pep Guardiola, his manager for four years at Bayern. If Klopp helped make Lewandowski an assassin, Guardiola showed him how to administer the kill in the most elegant, yet relentless way. The first year Lewandowski worked with Guardiola, he scored 25 times. Since then, his tallies have been 42, 43, 41, 40 and he is already at 38 for this campaign. It is freakish consistency, perhaps not fully appreciated, but it shows why comparisons with Gerd Muller are not out of place. ‘Everyone can learn from Pep,’ he says. ‘Not only the tactics but how to be a better player and how to be more clear with situations, to know what’s happening — where you should go, where you should run. Pep and Jurgen are different but if you made a mix from both, it would be perfection.’
And perfection is something the Pole continues to pursue. Bayern will one day have to think about replacing a man who joined the club in 2014 and signed a long-term contract last summer, but he is doing all he can to ensure that is some way off.
‘What you are doing in your preparations is so important,’ he says. ‘ Football now, everyone knows a lot about your tactics, how you move with and without the ball. That is why you have to try to find something that can help you. So you train your brain to be focused, like in school. I do exercises on a computer. I focus. I don’t look at my phone to see what’s going on. Mental focus has to be on a high level. The brain gets information (from what you do before a game) that something important is coming. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. I want to be better.’
The longer you spend with him, the more remarkable it seems that the whirlwind who blew Real Madrid away that frantic night seven years ago has not lifted the Champions League trophy, the greatest prize in club football. But there is still time — and Chelsea will find him a man on a mission.
‘I am the player who will try,’ he says. ‘I have never been the player who is afraid of something. I want to be the player who can do something special.’