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Robert Lewandowski has scored 66 goals in 118 international matches.
Only in the big tournaments is his record rather weak
Photo:
KACPER PEMPEL / REUTERS
Robert Lewandowski is an exceptional player - and even more so in his native Poland.
Since March he has been wearing the "Polonia Restituta" order, the second highest civilian decoration of the Polish state.
The Bayern striker is not just a footballer, but one whom an entire nation adores.
How much was shown when Lewandowski was about to set the 49-year-old Gerd Müller goal record in the Bundesliga (40 goals). In Warsaw a clock counted the goals of the Polish striker. A news portal rented two electronic advertising spaces in Munich and Düsseldorf. "Robert Lewandowski. In Poland we are proud of you «, they read in Polish. When SPIEGEL investigated the question of whether Lewandowski should better forego the record in mid-May, there was harsh criticism in the Polish media.
Poland will start the European Football Championship against Slovakia in the evening (6 p.m. / ARD and MagentaTV; live ticker SPIEGEL) and it is not surprising that the hopes of coach Paulo Sousa's team rest on the 32-year-old striker, who was the first in December Pole was voted World Footballer of the Year.
But there is also a downside.
Personal results are sobering at tournaments
If you look at the results of the »White-Reds« since Lewandowski's debut in 2008, the results are pretty sobering. Except for the European Championship 2016, when the Poles lost to the eventual title holder Portugal on penalties in the quarter-finals, the big bright spots have not been seen. Poland did not even qualify for the finals of the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. The Euro 2012, which the country hosted together with Ukraine, ended after the group stage despite all hopes. The 2018 World Cup in Russia was also a big disappointment: Poland was eliminated in the preliminary round as the last in a group with Colombia, Senegal and Japan.
Lewandowski's personal record at the major tournaments is also rather weak.
His overall quota is impressive: in 118 international matches so far, he has scored 66 goals.
But at the European and World Championships there was usually a problem.
In 2018 in Russia he did not meet a single time.
At the European Championships in 2012 and 2016, he only scored one goal each.
If Lewandowski had a low pitch, the whole country puzzled, like in 2016. And that shows the dilemma of the Polish national team.
While Lewandowski can go hunting for goals season after season at Bayern, because he benefits from the game of his teammates, he meets teammates in the national team who mostly lack international standards.
Except for goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny from Juventus, Piotr Zielinski from SSC Napoli or the former Seville and Paris professional Grzegorz Krychowiak, who is now under contract with Lokomotiv Moscow, there are hardly any players in the Polish team who, at least in the past, have played with major clubs played.
Arkadiusz Milik from Olympique Marseille is out injured, as is Krzysztof Piatek from Hertha BSC.
The newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" recently wrote that Lewandowski had to "work with bunglers" in the national team.
Trouble with the national coaches
That wouldn't be so problematic if Lewandowski wasn't under a little more pressure this year.
Because he is said to have played a part in the dismissal of Sousa's predecessor Jerzy Brzęczek.
Although the former Austrian legionnaire and uncle of Jakub Błaszczykowski led Poland to the EM, he was suspended in January.
During his entire tenure, he had to put up with the accusation that his tactics were not able to exploit Lewandowski's potential.
An accusation that Lewandowski fired.
When a journalist asked what plan they had to go into the game, the captain of the Polish national team replied with silence after a 2-0 defeat against Italy in the Nations League in November.
For Brzęczek, this was more or less the early release that followed in January, and the culmination of a conflict with the superstar that has persisted since he took office in autumn 2018. “He wanted to test whether I knew anything about football or not. And everyone was watching ”, the coach confessed in his autobiography, published last summer, about the first training sessions with the national team. Lewandowski is "difficult," it says, and has tried to "classify" him. For the entire two years the two had a public argument about the correct tactics.
It was not the first time that Lewandowski was critical of the national team coach.
In 2012, he made ex-national coach Franciszek Smuda responsible for the debacle at the home European championships in an interview.
After the World Cup in Russia, he even criticized his own teammates.
Lewandowski can also take advantage of these special rights because association president Zbigniew Boniek grants them to him.
The Polish superstar of the 1980s is leaving office this fall.
The result of his presidency since 2012 is rather mediocre.
The last chance to polish this up is the EM.
His bearer of hope is called: Robert Lewandowski.
