This article is the second of a two-part piece covering the development of Robert Lewandowski across his time in Germany. You can find the original piece here.
Football hath spawned monsters, and in 2018 Bayern Munich had quite the monster on their hands. One Robert Lewandowski, about to turn 30, had everything to win it all but still had one big mountain to climb. Despite his top-level play and being part of one of the best teams in Europe for the last eight years, he still had not won the UEFA Champions League, and still had not been recognised globally for the truly elite player that he was. It was the kind of hunger that one either devours whole as soon as possible or it begins to eat away at them instead… and Bayern were about to be in for a bad time.
I can be anything you need: The burden of responsibility under Kovač
Photo by Visionhaus
I need kerosene.
The arrival of Niko Kovač was a big moment for Lewandowski personally. Kovač’s lack of proper offensive plan and strong ideals to apply to the squad resulted in the players having no real direction going forward. This combined with the generational shift occurring at Bayern resulted in a real need for leadership in attacking areas, a need exacerbated by Kovač’s reluctance to play the only other experienced player who wasn’t over the hill and wrapping up their career in Thomas Müller. The onus was on Robert Lewandowski to lead this attack in the present while they transitioned from the past to the future.
Lewandowski had a switch flip in him this year, completely giving into the Ancelotti-esque principles of fluidity in the final third and showing up everywhere to direct attacks. His ability to shamelessly show up in spaces completely uncouth for a striker to show up in and then pivot play to different areas of the pitch using his amazing technical abilities was exactly the kind of stage direction the other players needed to secure a domestic double despite playing some pretty drab football tactically.
It may have statistically been Lewandowski’s worst season since 2015, but those who watched know this was perhaps his best season so far, marking the most important step of Lewandowski’s development: the ability to not just win games, but to grab games by the throat and dominate them. It is rather poetic that this crucial step in his evolution was caused, essentially, by accident as Kovač had not designed these circumstances for Lewandowski, but rather Lewandowski was thrown into the hot water and mutated a thick skin because of it.
This carry-job continued from the 2018/19 season into the early parts of the 2019/20 season, but once Kovač was finally dropped, with the next coach came the explosion that had been waiting to occur for practically half a decade now.
Tout Cela Est Pour Toi: Learning to love with Flick
![FC Bayern Muenchen v Tigres UANL - FIFA Club World Cup Qatar 2020](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rdCFEiEGvtw6UGCVukHOSJ1574E=/0x0:5370x3449/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5370x3449):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25546649/1301645838.jpg)
Photo by Fadi El Assaad – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images
Et L’Amour À Trois.
Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. Having assembled a skillset beyond that of any striker in world football, Lewandowski just needed the right system to be able to throw everything at the wall, and he received it.
Under Hansi Flick, Lewandowski ascended to godhood, aided by the new style of play. The re-introduction of Thomas Müller and the fluid wingers allowed Lewandowski to move wherever he really pleased in the final third, often being a creator more than a goalscorer (which is ridiculous when you realise the man had perhaps the greatest individual season in Champions League history purely scoring-wise). Flick’s extremely quick offensive style took Lewandowski back to his roots of being a darting forward, but this time he was no longer the scrawny, scrappy up-and-comer. He was the most technically proficient, physically imposing and smartest forward in the world. A player with one of these qualities is an asset to any team, but Lewandowski had all three. There was however, another factor: care. Lewandowski had hunger, yes, but it always looked a single-minded hunger of ‘I want to score/win’, not one motivated for the team. While Lewandowski was not selfish on the pitch, his general demeanor was never one that exuded a team-focused mindset. However, under Flick, something seemed to shift in him. It truly felt like Lewandowski, for the first time, loved playing football. The cool, suave image of a dyed-white forward scoring and doing his signature celebration alone was replaced with the grinning, gleeful all-natural player embracing his teammates who did their part too.
The Polish hitman tore through every team he faced, making defenders look foolish with his movements, beating them on the dribble, finding gaps with his passes and if all else failed, he could just take a shot from the edge of the box and will the ball into the net. It was not a question of if, it was a question of when he would get on the scoresheet. Lewandowski’s performance against Chelsea across both legs in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 is easily the best I have ever seen from a striker in any game, being involved in all seven goals (three goals, three assists, one prior involvement).
Unfortunately, a lack of continuity in the Bayern attack in Flick’s second season would result in middling results and Lewandowski’s playmaking abilities being hindered, but through the tempest of the 2020/21 season, he still managed to immortalise himself by breaking Gerd Müller’s half-century old goalscoring record, bagging just one more in the dying minutes of the last game of the season. Lewandowski had finally ascended to the beyond, achieved the height of football, but now approaching the age of 33 and with yet another coaching change on the horizon, what worlds were left to conquer? Is there really anything he has left to give?
Who am I? Not your father, not your brother: Re-working build-up patterns under Nagelsmann
![FC Bayern München v FC Salzburg: Round Of Sixteen Leg Two - UEFA Champions League](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/25z3Pkwrv-1kEah2t62l_j1FLPY=/0x0:6405x3954/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:6405x3954):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25546686/1383148670.jpg)
Photo by Stefan Matzke – sampics/Corbis via Getty Images
Not your reason, not your future, not your comfort, not your reverence, not your glory, not your heaven, not your angel, not your spirit, not your message, not your freedom, not your people, not your neighbour, not your baby, not your equal, not the title y’all want me under: All hail King Killmonger.
Under Julian Nagelsmann, Robert Lewandowski became a herald of doom. Just as one thought he had reached his ceiling, he pushed into another gear.
Nagelsmann has preferred striker-less systems with a lot of fluidity between the players involved in the final third, but with Lewandowski he adapted the system, and Lewandowski adapted too. Suddenly, Lewandowski was no longer a striker who was capable of dropping into spaces to aid progression, but rather he was a key build-up piece, often playing as a faux left wing-back to give the wingers and midfielders space up ahead to run into and then conduct play in those advanced areas before running in for the return pass. It was beautiful to watch.
This season was perhaps the final culmination of Lewandowski and Müller’s partnership, with Lewandowski’s deeper movements in initial stages of build-up meaning Müller was, for all intents and purposes, the more natural striker in most phases of play. It was only during the last stage of attack that Lewandowski would come bursting through defensive lines and Müller would hang back. This truly was the best version of Lewandowski, and perhaps the highest level that any striker in the history of the game had played to… but it would not last. An injury crisis forced changes in play and after the winter break, Bayern did not look the same at all, completely falling apart. Lewandowski scored his 30th goal of the season in November (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), but could not get to ‘even’ the 50-goal mark by the end of the season. It seemed like he needed just one more go at it, without COVID-19 and injuries making the path difficult, but alas…
The inevitable need for human change struck, and the grass seemed greener in Barcelona. In the desire to become an even bigger historical figure in the world of football, Lewandowski severed his ties with Bayern, and it cut short what could’ve perhaps been at least a few more seasons of elite level play. The potential continued development of Lewandowski is a big question mark that hangs over my head as someone who’s followed his career with extra interest from pretty much the first second he stepped into Bayern Munich. The possibilities seemed endless for the different directions he could’ve gone in, or perhaps even maintained the level he had achieved under Nagelsmann initially.
What do you think? Are there any aspects of his play we left out? Is it finally time for Lewandowski to begin to adapt his playstyle to a regressing body rather than continuing to attempt to improve? Let us know your thoughts in the discussion below.