On board a plane at around 30,000 feet somewhere between New York City and Portland is an unusual venue for a press conference, but it was where Robert Lewandowski dutifully took questions from reporters as FCB travelled to the next destination on the Audi Summer Tour USA 2014. The striker has been at Germany’s biggest club for some three weeks now and has settled to his new job immediately, with four goals in four friendly matches to date.
At his official unveiling, the 25-year-old confirmed that switching from Borussia Dortmund to Bayern was the “next step” in his career. Everything has gone well “from the very first day,” the Poland international reported, with a warm reception from the other players and an easier settling-in process than at BVB, where he arrived aged just 22 from Polish top flight outfit Lech Poznan.
“I know the team and most of the players relatively well. We’ve faced each other often enough in the past,” commented Lewandowski. “It’s a different situation compared to my first three months in Dortmund.” The man who was the Bundesliga’s top scorer last term is glad the squad will be together as a unit for the first time very soon. “The World Cup winners are joining us for the last friendly [the MLS All-Star Game on 6 August] and we’ll all be here at last. Every training session and warm-up match is much better if we’re all together.”
Just seven days after that Lewandowski will go head-to-head with his former team-mates for the first time when Munich visit Dortmund in the DFL German Super Cup on 13 August. “It’s obviously going to be special for me,” Lewandowski acknowledged, “I had four fantastic years there, but it’ll feel very different as a member of the visiting team.” The marksman is expecting “a difficult evening, simply because we’ll only have trained together for a week. But we’re a good team and we’ll obviously play to win.”
74 goals in 131 games
Lewandowski always digs deep in every training session, refusing to rest on his remarkable strike rate of 74 goals in 131 Bundesliga appearances. “I know I can get even better. It doesn’t matter where you’ve played and what you’ve won, you always have to give it everything you’ve got,” said the Pole, who feels he is “not yet at the limit. I hope I can get better every day.”
The player regularly consults head coach Pep Guardiola, he revealed. “We talk about what I should be doing differently and what the boss wants to see. I’m definitely not the kind of striker who spends 90 minutes hanging around in the box waiting for the ball to come to me. I’d rather have the ball and play as part of the team.” Robert is unconcerned whether he personally ends up putting the ball in the net. “The most important thing is winning as a team, even if I don’t score myself.”
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