Robert Lewandowski’s agent throws shade at Marco Reus

Marco Reus was voted Germany’s footballer of the year in kicker’s official poll for 2019 after a season that saw him score 17 goals and provide eight assists in the Bundesliga en route to Borussia Dortmund’s second place finish behind Bayern Munich. Reus also tallied one goal and one assist in the Champions League, and three goals and one assist in the DFB-Pokal.

Reus beat out Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski, Joshua Kimmich, and Serge Gnabry, Bayer Leverkusen’s Kai Havertz, Manchester City’s Leroy Sane, and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Luka Jovic to the honor. While Reus may have been deserving of the prestigious title, Lewandowski’s agent, Maik Barthel feels that the Polish ace was snubbed and should’ve won the award over Reus, per a new report by Bild. Barthel threw some shade in Reus’s direction, and to the voting process overall when he took to Twitter to vent his frustration at Lewandowski losing out:

Footballer of the year! You simply have to not win anything, then you have the best chances!

By stark contrast, Die Mannschaft manager Joachim Löw feels that Reus was more than deserving of the honor:

Marco absolutely deserved to be chosen “Footballer of the year.” With his tempo, technique, his moments of surprise, and his nose for goal, he is a player who can make the difference.

In comparison to Reus, Lewandowski finished the season with 22 goals and 10 assists in the league as well as eight goals in the Champions League and seven goals and three assists in the DFB-Pokal en route to Bayern’s domestic double. Going apples to apples, so to speak, might not necessarily be the only criteria for going about casting votes for this award, as numbers can’t always show a players influence or overall impact in matches. Still, though, it’s hard to argue how good of a season Lewandowski had. Perhaps a large part of voter’s decision making came down to Reus’s injury history, since this was one of the first season’s in quite some time where he didn’t have a significant spell on the sidelines.

What’s everyone think? Was Reus the rightful recipient, or was Lewandowski wrongfully snubbed? Let us know in the comments section!

Photo by Sebastian Widmann/Bongarts/Getty Images