Pin-up adds final polish
ATRACE of bewilderment flashed across the face of Robert Lewandowski at the Poland team hotel here on Saturday. Lewandowski, the 24-year-old pin-up striker, seemed taken aback by the idea that he is improving. In his own mind, he has always been very good.
Asked about a quotation from Ottmar Hitzfeld, who earlier this year described Lewandowski as ‘a player transformed’, the player in question replied: ‘I’m working on a daily basis. There’s no big difference. I don’t know what else I can say.’
He may feel unaltered but in his first season at Borussia Dortmund, the striker scored nine goals in 43 appearances. Last season that jumped to 30 in 46, with a hat-trick in the German Cup final against Bayern Munich.
A player whose value was being queried in 2011, even though Lewandowski cost only €4.5m when he was signed from Lech Poznan, was in 2012 named Bundesliga Player of the Year.
Hitzfeld had his reasons. The transformation is what has grabbed the attention of rival Champions League clubs. That scoring spike is why England will watch him so closely tonight.
One of Poland’s assistant coaches, Hubert Malowiejski, who worked with Lewandowski at Poznan until 2010, confirmed the player’s innate self- confidence, and also the Hitzfeld opinion.
‘I know Robert from Lech Poznan,’ Malowiejski said. ‘Three years ago he was just a striker who could score goals. Now he can drop into the Wayne Rooney position and start combinations. And his heading has improved. He’s become a more complete player.
‘Playing in a very good team, and being in the first XI, has been very important for his progress. If he went to, say, Barcelona and was on the bench, he cannot improve. But in Dortmund, with a great coach and team-mates, playing in the Champions League, he is very capable with great potential.
‘Training and playing with good players every single day, that’s the reason why he is so good now. He believes in himself even more now. And he always did.’
But not everyone else did. That Lewandowski was playing at Poznan, rather than in his native Warsaw, is indicative of a not-so straightforward road to the top.
Famously, the Poland manager at Euro 2012, Franciszek Smuda, travelled to watch Lewandowski when he was manager of Lech Poznan. Smuda, in a quote he subsequently denied, described the journey as a waste of petrol.
The sporting director of Poznan signed the forward anyway and Smuda then picked him for Poland. It was Lewandowski’s soaring header in the opening match of Euro 2012 against Greece that gave the tournament lift-off.
He had been playing for Znicz Pruszkow at the time of Smuda’s scouting. That was in the Polish third division — Lewandowski was 18. He finished top scorer and helped Pruszkow to promotion.
Having grown up 30 miles from Warsaw in Leszno, Lewandowski had ambitions to play for Poland’s biggest club, Legia Warsaw. He is from a sporting family — his father Krzysztof, who had been a lower division player, died when he was a teenager; his mother Iwona was a volleyball player, and is now president of the local football club Partizan Leszno.
But instead it was at Delta Warsaw in the fourth division where he began and though he made it to Legia as a teenager, it was with mainly the youth and third teams. Lewandowski was allowed to leave Legia for Pruszkow at 17.
It has been upward since. But for all the upsurge in goals in the Bundesliga, he misses chances, too, as was seen for Dortmund at Manchester City a fortnight ago. In eight Champions League games for Borussia, Lewandowski has two goals.
In Poland, there is also awareness that in 47 games for his country, only one of his 15 goals came in a competitive match — that Euro 2012 opener v Greece.
‘In games against big rivals it’s true that I haven’t normally scored,’ Lewandowski said last week. ‘I’m working for the team. But I’d like to score in this game.’
He does contribute more than goals, as he said. And he is usually up front on his own. Lewandowski has not always taken this quietly. He was prepared to question Smuda.
Similarly there have been dismissive comments about nonnative Poland players such as Ludovic Obraniak. The relationship between the two is said to be tense, yet they are the biggest danger to England tonight. Personal feelings may be set aside.
But only for so long. The politics over Lewandowski’s future will return — he is out of contract at Dortmund in 2014. Agent Cezary Kucharski has already been criticised by Borussia manager Jurgen Klopp over the flurry of transfer stories. Kucharski knows how it works. He is a former player; he is also an MP.