Bayern have every right to keep Lewandowski
And this is exactly where Robert Lewandowski succumbs to a fatal error – it is the biggest mistake of his career. After all, FC Bayern can keep the striker who is willing to emigrate – and not just because he has every contractual right to do so. Also because Bayern should keep him. Even more: Because Bayern have to keep him.
Munich now have a unique opportunity to set an example. Now the scales can be more evenly balanced in the direction of the clubs – and the recently increasingly oversized power of the players and their sometimes windy advisors would be trimmed to a healthy level. Soccer clubs have recently become more and more the pawns of their interests, detailed – and legally binding – contracts degraded to double use for other purposes. If you don’t feel like it anymore, you force yourself to the club of your financial dreams, despite all the “He stays!” statements – see previously the BVB stars Ousmane Dembéle 2017 and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 2018. They will be remembered in Dortmund Stomach pains still today at their difficult to bear gossip theater.
Lewandowski is not allowed to achieve anything
The only important thing is that Bayern have to stand their ground now. In the past few weeks, full of media reports about the whereabouts of the superstar, who says it has been badly neglected, the Bayern management has repeatedly stated that it insists on fulfilling the current working paper. CEO Oliver Kahn, President Herbert Hainer, Sports Director Hasan Salihamidzic were and are being pushed daily by the eager sports boulevard to explain into every microphone held out to them that Lewandowski will under no circumstances leave, regardless of any statements from the player’s camp. And have maneuvered themselves into a one-way street from which there is no turning back. And that’s right.
Because that’s exactly how it has to stay. With their composure, Bayern are already the winners of this undignified transfer theater – and Lewandowski is already the big loser. And with every further word, every further sentence from the Pole or his advisor, the urge for a change not only seems more desperate, the balance of power also shifts further in the direction of Munich. Should Lewandowski complain and tease as much as he wants – he can’t and won’t achieve anything, at most that in the end the fans of the “Reds” will turn against him.
Despite all the goals and top performances, a Robert Lewandowski is not irreplaceable, which should become clearer to the striker’s side with every further report about possible newcomers for the Bayern offensive. He has two options: to take the argument to the extreme and to sit in the stands for the first time in 2022/23. In the short term, a sporting nightmare for coach Julian Nagelsmann’s team, but one that has to be overcome – inevitable in the long term anyway, the seven-time Bundesliga top scorer will be 34 in August. Or: Robert Lewandowski reflects shortly before the start of the season and, as in the previous eight years, gives everything as a true professional for the club where he has become a world star.
In any case, Bayern would have used the unique opportunity. For yourself and for football.