Footballing unhappiness might have contributed to the Robert Lewandowski saga at Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich has a rather mightily public saga brewing over contract negotiations with star striker Robert Lewandowski. Lewandowski has his own lofty ambitions. He had missed out on the Ballon d’Or last year narrowly (awarded to PSG’s Lionel Messi) and wanted to challenge to become the best player in the world again.

But then, Bayern’s attack started to run into trouble in 2022; Lewandowski had to rely on chance or individual skill to score his goals. He even had a stretch in which he went six games without scoring a goal per kicker. Bayern scored goals but the attack had problems which led to a toothless exit against Villarreal in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals. According to kicker, Lewandowski expressed his criticisms internally.

Then came the Haaland saga. Per kicker, Lewandowski was not necessarily angry with the pursuit of Haaland — Lewa was rather angry at the fact that Haaland was approached first and not him.

BFW Opinion: Lewandowski is not alone in criticizing Bayern’s haphazard manner of attacking in the second half of the season. We all knew something Julian Nagelsmann was doing was not working. This resulted in Lewa’s hopes of winning the Ballon d’Or going down the drain. Yet, as a leader on the team, he could have done more. He could have had discussions with Julian Nagelsmann, which, to me seems like the kind of discussions the coach, in his first year in one of the toughest jobs in the game, would perhaps welcome. Again, he is right to be aggrieved; I am just not sure he is taking the right approach to expressing his feelings.

Do you think Lewa was right to be aggrieved by the way in which Bayern was attacking in 2022? Let us know your thoughts and thank you for reading!