Lewandowski and Bayern Munich’s tug-of-war and what happens now

There was a time earlier this season when all seemed well between Robert Lewandowski and his employers.

In October, Bayern Munich posted a clip on social media that showed the Poland striker chipping a ball with pinpoint accuracy from the training pitch to the window of CEO Oliver Kahn’s office on the third floor. An inch or two the wrong way, and one of them would have been paying a hefty glazier’s bill. But the trick worked perfectly, and Kahn grinned as he caught the ball neatly in both hands.

Fast forward half a year or so, and everything is different. The smiles have faded, and Kahn and Lewandowski’s relationship is shattered.

Speaking yesterday at a Poland press conference, Lewandowski publicly stated his desire to leave Bayern Munich this summer, rather than at the end of his contract.

“My story with Bayern has come to an end, I cannot imagine further good cooperation,” he said. “I hope they will not stop me (from leaving) just because they can. A transfer is the best solution for everyone.”

In an interview with Bild newspaper earlier this week, the striker’s agent Pini Zahavi tore into the Bayern hierarchy. Their hesitancy in offering Lewandowski a new contract and their apparent interest in Erling Haaland, he said, had left the 33-year-old feeling “disrespected”, and now he wanted out.

“Bayern have not lost the player Lewandowski, they have lost Robert as a person,” he said. “For Robert, Bayern is history.”

It is a statement nobody in Munich ever wanted to hear. Lewandowski, after all, is about much more than the clickbait party tricks. He is a striker who has scored at least 40 goals in each of the last seven seasons, a two-time FIFA Best Men’s Player of the Year, and a player who has remained at peak condition well into his thirties.

Yet slowly but surely, it seems that Bayern are coming around to the idea that Lewandowski will soon be gone — potentially even as soon as this summer.

“If he wants to leave the club now, then there will be talks,” said Bayern captain Manuel Neuer, who recently extended his own contract until 2024, at a media round table with the German national team on Tuesday. “The club will have to weigh up whether it makes sense to sell him now or keep him for another year.”

Bayern have stated their preference. At the title celebrations last week, Kahn insisted that Lewandowski would see out his contract.

Yet the vultures are circling. Lewandowski has been heavily linked with Barcelona, and Spanish media also reported this week that Zahavi has been in contact with Real Madrid following Kylian Mbappe’s decision to stay at Paris Saint-Germain.

If Bayern do relent this summer, they will at least avoid losing Lewandowski on a free. But, as Neuer pointed out, that will also mean having to replace him.

“If the club sell Lewandowski, the question is which centre-forward would be brought in as a new signing?” asked the Bayern goalkeeper on Tuesday and, while he insisted that he had faith in the club, there are few serious candidates on the market this summer.

Haaland has gone to Manchester City. Karim Adeyemi has gone to Borussia Dortmund. Patrik Schick, arguably the neatest fit with his style of play and Bundesliga experience, has just signed a new deal at Bayer Leverkusen.

Bayern have also been linked with Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdzic, but despite his talent, Lewandowski’s would be enormous shoes to fill for a young striker who missed half of last season through injury.

RB Leipzig’s Christopher Nkunku is dangerous in front of goal and has worked with Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann before, but would not be a like-for-like replacement. The same goes for Sadio Mane, for whom Bayern are reportedly plotting a dramatic swoop after the Champions League final.

There are, in fact, probably only two strikers in world football who could immediately fill a Lewandowski-shaped hole. One is Karim Benzema and the other is Harry Kane, whom former Bayern defender Jerome Boateng last week urged the club to buy.

“Personally, I would try immediately to sign Kane. He is a complete striker and he’s not currently playing for a world-class team,” the World Cup winner told Sky.

It made for a good headline, but the idea that Bayern would put up the money required for Kane is fanciful. Bayern have always made a point of spending responsibly, and as the negotiations with David Alaba last year and now Lewandowski have shown, they often remain willing to lose key players rather than bow to high wage demands.

Zahavi, who represents both those players, insists that it is not about the money. Bayern, on the other hand, have been quick to claim the moral high ground in both transfer sagas. Former president Uli Hoeness famously called the agent a “greedy piranha” during the negotiations with Alaba, and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic accused him of “turning Lewandowski’s head” last Sunday.

Hoeness has also stuck his oar in again this time, tearing into Barcelona from the sidelines. “They apparently had 1.3 billion euros of debt six months ago and now they want Lewandowski. They must be artists, because in Germany, you’d be insolvent working like that,” he told RTL this week.

Beyond the snarking and sour grapes, there is a serious point here for Bayern. Traditionally, they have managed to attract and keep stars despite spending less than other super clubs, but their failure to hold onto Alaba and Lewandowski may suggest the tide is turning.

As Kahn has repeatedly pointed out since taking over as CEO last July, the gap they need to bridge is becoming bigger and bigger.

“The combination of investors’ money and much higher TV revenues means that English clubs in particular are pulling further away from us in terms of wages. They can afford much broader and more expensive squads,” he told Welt am Sonntag last weekend.

His critics would argue that this has long been the case, and that the difference now is also that Bayern’s new leaders are not as convincing as their predecessors. Both Kahn and Salihamidzic have faced criticism over the Lewandowski saga. To lose him this summer would be seen as another defeat, a crushing indictment of their lack of authority.

But there is also another, less gloomy possibility: that selling Lewandowski would release the club from the cult of the superstar and allow them to build a new team under Nagelsmann.

This, after all, has never been a club with a Galactico vibe. Even the best individualists — Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and Lewandowski himself — only became great players at Bayern when they were coaxed into a more selfless approach by coaches like Jupp Heynckes and Pep Guardiola.

Nagelsmann has insisted that he would love to hold on to Lewandowski, but the relationship has not always been easy. German media reported earlier this month that he and other senior players had been critical of the coach’s “annoying and complex” training methods.

For previous coaches like Carlo Ancelotti and Niko Kovac, that kind of dressing room grumbling proved fatal at Bayern, but the situation is different now.

With his Bavarian twang and his innate cockiness, the 34-year-old is a natural fit at Bayern, and despite a slightly disappointing first season he is still charged with building a new era in Munich. Giving him the space to work and younger players who suit his style may be more important in the long run than keeping Lewandowski.

Bayern have already started making moves in this summer’s transfer window, wrapping up a deal to sign Noussair Mazraoui from Ajax, and closing in on his team-mate Ryan Gravenberch.

It is a delicate moment for the new regime in Munich, and the decisive question will be whether it is more harmful to lose their star striker or keep him against his will.

Despite Kahn’s insistence that he will stay — and despite the fact that he is effectively irreplaceable — letting Lewandowski leave may yet prove the best option for Bayern.

“It’s such a shame that the situation has got this bad,” wrote Bayern legend Lothar Matthaus in his column for Sky this week. “But even if he stays, I am convinced that Lewandowski and Bayern will never again have the same relationship they have had for the last eight years.

(Top Photo: Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)