With Robert Lewandowski set to join FC Bayern Munich on 1 July this year after securing his dream move to the club, the forward’s last game for his current employers Borussia Dortmund will have the unusual twist of coming against his future team-mates. The two sides will meet at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on Saturday in the DFB Cup final, which will be broadcast live on ARD and Sky from 20:00 CET. With the forward aiming to depart on a high note, Dortmund and Bayern will respectively be optimistic and wary in equal measure. DFB.de takes a closer look at the Polish frontman.
It was presumably after Lewandowski hit a hat-trick past Bayern at Berlin’s Olympiastadion almost exactly two years ago that the powerbrokers in Bavaria decided it would be better to see the striker playing in Bayern’s colours in future.<7p>
"I’m really looking forward to the game," Lewandowski said before his side’s cup semi-final. Since then the forward’s last few days in Dortmund have been both exciting and emotional. He was first given a farewell at the club’s stadium on Strobelallee that was far more appropriate than that which the fans afforded Mario Götze last year, before going on to score twice in a cup final dress rehearsal against Hertha Berlin in the capital last weekend.
Bundesliga top scorer
That brace, Lewandowski’s fifth of the season, not only helped Dortmund to a 4-0 victory but also propelled him to the top of the scorers’ chart on 20 goals - ahead of Bayern’s Mario Mandzukic - making him only the third Dortmund player to win the goalscorer’s cannon after Lothar Emmerich (1966 and 1967) and Marcio Amoroso (2002). "Robert Lewandowski is a unique player," said the club’s sporting director Michael Zorc afterwards.
In the DFB Cup semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg Lewandowski grabbed his 100th competitive goal for Dortmund in what was only his 182nd appearance, before hitting the net again four days later in the league against Mainz. In the 2011/12 campaign the striker found the target 22 times and bettered that tally by two the following season, scoring a total of 29 in the 2012 calendar year.
No other Dortmund striker, including illustrious names such as Amoroso, Jan Koller, Ewerthon, Euzebiusz Smolarek, Mladen Petric, Alexander Frei and Lucas Barrios, has achieved that this century, putting Lewandowski into a class of his own.
All-round threat
Yet the statistics do not tell the whole story of Lewandowski’s range of abilities, nor do they highlight just how important the Poland international has become for Dortmund, with whom he won the Bundesliga twice and the DFB Cup once, as well as appearing in a UEFA Champions League final. Far more telling are the memorable pictures of him in action: bringing down a high ball as if it were stuck to his foot, or expertly cushioning a drilled pass on his chest.
Lewandowski’s combination of power and grace set him apart as a player, while no other striker in the Bundesliga - and possibly in the rest of Europe - has mastered his seemingly effortless way of controlling the ball and then using it in one seamless movement. Where other players would take three touches, Lewandowski needs just one and he is a constant threat, even with his back to goal.
"Robby’s done extraordinary things for Dortmund"
Yet Lewandowski is also willing to do the dirty work, harrying defenders and chasing after the ball for the sake of the team. He played in 45 of Dortmund’s 46 competitive matches in 2012, featuring in the starting line-up on 44 occasions. In the first half of the 2012/13 season he appeared in 16 of the club’s 17 Bundesliga games, playing the full 90 minutes in 15 of those. Nobody, not even Roman Weidenfeller, Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gündogan or Götze could match that. And contrary to what many critics predicted last summer when his transfer to Bayern was blocked, Lewandowski ran himself into the ground again and again for Dortmund, and has done so throughout the season.
"Robby’s done extraordinary things for Dortmund," said Weidenfeller. "He deserves the respect of everyone who holds this club dear." CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke was equally complimentary a few weeks ago: "Robert has shown that we were right to keep him until the end of his contract. His goals have made us more money than anything we’d have been able to recoup in transfer fees last summer."
Finances aside, Lewandowski has continued to provide fans with unforgettable memories, such as in last weekend’s match in Berlin. In his previous 130 Bundesliga games for Dortmund, Lewandowski had never scored a direct free-kick, but managed to do just that when putting the side 3-0 up by curling a delicate effort over the wall and into the top corner.
"He still has to show how good he is one more time for us"
Such lavish praise scarcely seemed possible upon his arrival in Dortmund in summer 2010, when he was more interested in reading incoming text messages on his phone than answering the questions put to him in his first interview by a pair of local journalists. Indeed, after Dortmund refused to sanction his move to Bayern last summer he repeatedly voiced his displeasure in words clumsily translated from Polish, leading to accusations that he would prove a divisive figure in the Dortmund dressing room in his last year at the club.
Yet coach Jürgen Klopp refused to be drawn into a conflict and simply stated: "For me, what Robert does is 1000 times more important than what he says." And while Lewandowski’s commitment cannot be faulted in 2013/14, Dortmund still have one final request before he leaves: "He has to show how good he is one more time for us," said Zorc. His chance will come on Saturday in Berlin’s Olympiastadion in the DFB Cup final against his future employers Bayern Munich.
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With Robert Lewandowski set to join FC Bayern Munich on 1 July this year after securing his dream move to the club, the forward’s last game for his current employers Borussia Dortmund will have the unusual twist of coming against his future team-mates. The two sides will meet at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on Saturday in the DFB Cup final, which will be broadcast live on ARD and Sky from 20:00 CET. With the forward aiming to depart on a high note, Dortmund and Bayern will respectively be optimistic and wary in equal measure. DFB.de takes a closer look at the Polish frontman.
It was presumably after Lewandowski hit a hat-trick past Bayern at Berlin’s Olympiastadion almost exactly two years ago that the powerbrokers in Bavaria decided it would be better to see the striker playing in Bayern’s colours in future.<7p>
"I’m really looking forward to the game," Lewandowski said before his side’s cup semi-final. Since then the forward’s last few days in Dortmund have been both exciting and emotional. He was first given a farewell at the club’s stadium on Strobelallee that was far more appropriate than that which the fans afforded Mario Götze last year, before going on to score twice in a cup final dress rehearsal against Hertha Berlin in the capital last weekend.
Bundesliga top scorer
That brace, Lewandowski’s fifth of the season, not only helped Dortmund to a 4-0 victory but also propelled him to the top of the scorers’ chart on 20 goals - ahead of Bayern’s Mario Mandzukic - making him only the third Dortmund player to win the goalscorer’s cannon after Lothar Emmerich (1966 and 1967) and Marcio Amoroso (2002). "Robert Lewandowski is a unique player," said the club’s sporting director Michael Zorc afterwards.
In the DFB Cup semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg Lewandowski grabbed his 100th competitive goal for Dortmund in what was only his 182nd appearance, before hitting the net again four days later in the league against Mainz. In the 2011/12 campaign the striker found the target 22 times and bettered that tally by two the following season, scoring a total of 29 in the 2012 calendar year.
No other Dortmund striker, including illustrious names such as Amoroso, Jan Koller, Ewerthon, Euzebiusz Smolarek, Mladen Petric, Alexander Frei and Lucas Barrios, has achieved that this century, putting Lewandowski into a class of his own.
All-round threat
Yet the statistics do not tell the whole story of Lewandowski’s range of abilities, nor do they highlight just how important the Poland international has become for Dortmund, with whom he won the Bundesliga twice and the DFB Cup once, as well as appearing in a UEFA Champions League final. Far more telling are the memorable pictures of him in action: bringing down a high ball as if it were stuck to his foot, or expertly cushioning a drilled pass on his chest.
Lewandowski’s combination of power and grace set him apart as a player, while no other striker in the Bundesliga - and possibly in the rest of Europe - has mastered his seemingly effortless way of controlling the ball and then using it in one seamless movement. Where other players would take three touches, Lewandowski needs just one and he is a constant threat, even with his back to goal.
[bild2]
"Robby’s done extraordinary things for Dortmund"
Yet Lewandowski is also willing to do the dirty work, harrying defenders and chasing after the ball for the sake of the team. He played in 45 of Dortmund’s 46 competitive matches in 2012, featuring in the starting line-up on 44 occasions. In the first half of the 2012/13 season he appeared in 16 of the club’s 17 Bundesliga games, playing the full 90 minutes in 15 of those. Nobody, not even Roman Weidenfeller, Mats Hummels, Ilkay Gündogan or Götze could match that. And contrary to what many critics predicted last summer when his transfer to Bayern was blocked, Lewandowski ran himself into the ground again and again for Dortmund, and has done so throughout the season.
"Robby’s done extraordinary things for Dortmund," said Weidenfeller. "He deserves the respect of everyone who holds this club dear." CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke was equally complimentary a few weeks ago: "Robert has shown that we were right to keep him until the end of his contract. His goals have made us more money than anything we’d have been able to recoup in transfer fees last summer."
Finances aside, Lewandowski has continued to provide fans with unforgettable memories, such as in last weekend’s match in Berlin. In his previous 130 Bundesliga games for Dortmund, Lewandowski had never scored a direct free-kick, but managed to do just that when putting the side 3-0 up by curling a delicate effort over the wall and into the top corner.
"He still has to show how good he is one more time for us"
Such lavish praise scarcely seemed possible upon his arrival in Dortmund in summer 2010, when he was more interested in reading incoming text messages on his phone than answering the questions put to him in his first interview by a pair of local journalists. Indeed, after Dortmund refused to sanction his move to Bayern last summer he repeatedly voiced his displeasure in words clumsily translated from Polish, leading to accusations that he would prove a divisive figure in the Dortmund dressing room in his last year at the club.
Yet coach Jürgen Klopp refused to be drawn into a conflict and simply stated: "For me, what Robert does is 1000 times more important than what he says." And while Lewandowski’s commitment cannot be faulted in 2013/14, Dortmund still have one final request before he leaves: "He has to show how good he is one more time for us," said Zorc. His chance will come on Saturday in Berlin’s Olympiastadion in the DFB Cup final against his future employers Bayern Munich.
