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Robert Lewandowski’s journey to achieve his current status as the world’s best player is incredible to say the least. The Bayern Munich striker penned a long piece for The Players’ Tribune and one of the highlights of his story was his experience with Jurgen Klopp.
Klopp clearly made a huge impact on Lewandowski and the Polish Hitman has never forgotten just how much Klopp helped him. Lewandowski wrote about the experience with Klopp in quite a creative way:
Jürgen was not only a father figure to me. As a coach, he was like the ‘bad’ teacher. And I mean that in the best sense of the word. He was not content to let you be a B student, you know?
Jürgen wanted A+ students. He didn’t want it for him. He wanted it for you. He taught me so much. When I arrived at Dortmund, I wanted to do everything quickly: strong pass, one touch only. Jürgen showed me to calm down — to take two touches if necessary. It was totally against my nature, but soon I was scoring more goals.
When I had that down, he challenged me to speed it up again. One touch. BANG. Goal. He slowed me down to speed me up. It sounds simple, but it was genius, really.
The entire piece is worth a read if you are a fan Lewandowski or if you just like a story of perseverance.