Robert Lewandowski interview: Longevity, rejection, and his Barcelona future

Robert Lewandowski sits forward, eyes narrowing slightly, and repeats the sentence that has driven him since Legia Warsaw released him at 17. “I was always fighting to show everyone. I was fighting to show I was the right guy.” At 37, with 392 league goals in Europe’s top-five divisions since 2010—only Lionel Messi has more—he still sounds like the skinny kid told he would not make it.

That refusal to accept limits explains why Lewandowski is preparing for his 16th elite season while contemporaries have retired or slipped to softer leagues. Since arriving at Borussia Dortmund in 2010, only Antoine Griezmann and Dani Parejo have logged more minutes in Europe’s leading leagues, yet neither carries Lewandowski’s combined burden of 139 Poland caps and 150 European club matches. The numbers are similarly stark in front of goal: after a settling-in year in Germany, he has scored 25 or more in every full campaign, culminating in 42 league goals last season at age 36. Even a stop-start 2024-25 has yielded 11 goals in 1,052 La Liga minutes—roughly a goal every 96 minutes.

Longevity on that scale is not accidental. At 21, Lewandowski began eliminating gluten and lactose after noticing cornflakes and chocolate left him sluggish. His wife Anna, a former world-level karate medallist turned nutritionist, still refines his diet and recovery protocols. “Maybe without her help, I couldn’t reach the level I am,” he admits. The meticulous approach has produced almost pristine health: since 2010, his longest injury absence is seven games, a month out with a knee strain at Bayern in 2021. Groin surgery in December 2019 was timed to cost zero matches. “I don’t know what’s in his DNA,” says Barcelona coach Hansi Flick, “but he recovers in three weeks from injuries that should last five.”

Durability is matched by adaptability. Lewandowski has thrived under nine contrasting coaches—Klopp, Guardiola, Ancelotti, Heynckes, Kovac, Flick, Nagelsmann, Xavi and now Flick again—learning to exploit space rather than rely on raw pace. “I can play every type of football,” he says. “Counter-attacks, possession, high press—no problem. My body is flexible and my brain analyses movement quickly.”

Yet the past still fuels him. Missing Champions League quarter-finals against PSG in 2021 and the first leg of last season’s semi against Inter still rankle. “Even when I scored 41 goals in 2020-21, I did it in 29 games. If I played all 34, maybe I would have scored 50.”

The immediate question is where those goals will be scored next. Lewandowski’s Barcelona contract expires in June, and the club’s expectation, per The Athletic, is that he will depart. MLS side Chicago Fire have shown interest, but nothing is advanced. “I don’t know,” he says when asked if he wants to stay. “I have to feel it. I’m not even 50 per cent sure which way I want to go.” The decision, he insists, can wait. “I don’t put pressure on myself—probably when I was 25 or 30 that would have been different.”

Whatever the choice, the underlying motivation will not change. Somewhere inside the 37-year-old striker remains the teenager rejected by Legia, certain he can still prove the doubters wrong. Wherever he plays, he will still be scanning for space, still scoring, still fighting to show he is, and always was, the right guy.