Lewandowski wants to leave Bayern and look for new horizons. On a valley Saturday, with no other focus than the English Cup final, the news spread like wildfire. His intention has been known after one of his usual seasons, a scoring clock that does not stop. He has scored 35 goals in 34 league games, close to the 40 he added in the previous year, figures reserved until recently for Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the kind of production that sharpens the teeth of any club with aspirations. In a world without ages, the signing of Lewandowski would be close to the level of 200 million, the price paid for the indisputable ones who solve the problems of the great teams, but in his case the fee depends on the weight of time, a scale that records what obvious – the date of birth, August 21, 1988 – and leaves everything else to office considerations.
It is said that Barça is among those who meditate, or something else, his signing. Lewandowski ends his contract next year, a short period of maneuver for Bayern, which he sells now or he will not receive a euro. It is the fashionable strategy in the football market, marked by the players’ agents who discount the last year of the stars’ contract to force a transfer or a very expensive renewal. Transfer that is cheap to the club that buys and forced to the one that sells, unless the club belongs to a country based on the petrodollar and denies the largest, as happened last year in the rejection of Paris Saint Germain to the offer of 200 million that Real Madrid did for the hiring of Mbappé. It makes perfect sense that Barça, this Barça at least, identifies Lewandowski as a priority signing. Without the possibility of competing in the big auctions, Barça would be encouraged by two obvious objectives: the guarantee, not discussed so far, of the Pole as a scorer and the relief that the arrival of one of the best-known names in football would produce.
In terms of age, the club needs a couple of good years from Lewandowski, room for maneuver to repair the previous sporting and economic damage. Although soccer is the least exact of sciences, everything indicates that the decline is not imminent. Lewandowski’s career has reached its highest point in the last three years: 35, 40 and 34 goals. It is valid, therefore. The effect of a leap in football cultures remains to be debated. Of the stability of Bayern and its hegemony in the Bundesliga, there is no doubt. For the past decade, Lewandowski has been a substantial part of that firm structure, perfectly oiled, no matter which coach ran the team. His contribution to the safe Bavarian building has been constant and resounding: goals and more goals. The symbiosis between Bayern and Lewandowski has been perfect. Would it be similar in a club that has skipped all the laws of thermodynamics in recent years, subjected to instabilities and combustion of nuclear magnitude?
We are facing a biunivocal responsibility. Lewandowski would have to confirm his effectiveness at a new club and in a very different league from Germany. Barça would be forced to face an equally interesting challenge. It is none other than the need to recover prestige and restore institutional firmness that has evaporated without a trace. If he does not abandon the tendency to indecision and confusion, the signing of Lewandowski would be of little use. The scorers also suffer in territories of instability. With regard to age, perhaps it is convenient to vary the perspective. Soccer has moved away the horizon of decline. Ask Benzema (34 years old), Modric (36) at Real Madrid.
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