How has he played this season? Has he been as prolific as last season?
Robert Lewandowski
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Wasn't it also because he said there were broken promises or something?
Dortmund's not as good as they were last season. I think he's still playing well and scoring.
Could have been worse had he not been given that pay rise...
I don't know exactly, but that's what they decided and they were right to have done so. His contract was to expire in 12 months and giving him a pay rise (from €1.8m to €7m) made Lewandowski less angry, I imagine.
He's fast but he isn't anywhere near Lewandowski in other aspects of his play from what I've heard. They're still in the Champions League so their gamble of keeping Lewandowski for another year may still pay off, although so far it hasn't, mainly because of the injury crisis they have had it has to be said. They were matching Bayern step for step before the injury curse hit them. It did hit Bayern as well but Dortmund don't have a squad like Bayern's, no one else in the world does.
Even though Dortmund are worse than last season, he's (along with Ramos from Hertha) Bundesliga leading scorer with 11 goals. He has also scored four goals in Champions League.
That's fair enough, and a great return from someone who wants to be elsewhere.
Aye, we have to admit he doesn't act like Ronaldo in 2008, not a slave.
(Of course I don't mean his goals, Ronaldo also kept scoring for us, but at least he remains quiet and is focused on football)
Well they've had a defensive injury crisis for most of the season so far.
Yes, and it means they're not as good as they were. It affects the whole team, not only defence.
Given the circumstances? Yes, it was the best possible call by the officials. Lewandowski was overall probably our best offensive player in this not always satisfying season half. He is on the top of the goals chart and contributed towards our great start before we were screwed over by an injury crisis and is one of the reasons why we still are on a CL spot.
He also had good good performances in the two most important matches so far vs. Neapel and Marseille, scoring a goal and two assists. So winning the most difficult CL group and having good chances for the QF in the CL is also partly thanks to him.
Happy? For gods sake, no. It is frustrating having your best players pulled from your team, but I was ok with this transfer since a long time ago. It helps that unlike the other top players, I never had an emotional attachement towards him. He is not a gem like Sahin or Götze were and certainly not a fan favourite like Shinji was. He is a mercernary and I treated him like one for quite a while now.
It also does not help to throw a temper tandrum right now, because I still know what kind of club I support. Some Dortmund fans lost touch towards reality because of the CL final, but I can accept that we are not a plastique club or part of the European elite. Only those teams can afford to cling onto players. We can play like one, because of a phenomenal coach and a working system, but the reality is, that we are right now just a Tier 1.5 club.
We are growing, though, also financial wise. I´m certain we will cement our position as the number 2 in Germany reach a stage, where losing top players won´t happen every year. This is what is important. It was never going to be easy to break into the elite and I never pretended that suddenly it would become easy.
So, yeah, life goes on. The most important person will be at the club for at least 5 more years, so another top player leaving won´t throw me into panic mode.
You're getting Shinji back at the end of the season, so you'll have the reason to be happy 
You've a strong academy in place, don't you? You'll be okay.
They did not. They played the difficult teams at the end and had a very easy beginning of the season. They struggled exactly against the teams which a lot persons knew they would struggle against - Gladbach, Wolfsburg, Leverkusen, a strengthened Hertha. That was not only due to injuries but also lack in a plan B for the offense.
The past decade, Bayern did just that - strengthen the squad enough to win national titles. (Bayern bought players from national rivals - oh my. Show me one league where the best players don't tend to drift towards the top clubs). It ended, CL-wise, usually around the quarter finals. The money and the attention is in the CL nowadays, and it is either howl with the wolves or be satisfied with mediocrity. Bayern didn't exactly start it, you know. I still can remember when we lost players like Hargreaves or Ballack, Reuter, Matthäus, Brehme, Rummenigge.
And about the hate - Bayern are hated anyway. You think the folks at Kaiserslautern or Nürnberg or Dortmund would start throwing their knickers at Neuer and Schweini if Bayern stood back from hiring Lewa?
They also have the highest support in numbers. So what? Not a situation completely unknown to United supporters, i suspect.
Why should a player who has the talent to play in the very best teams not do exactly this? Is every outstanding player supposed to stick at a second tier club for his lifetime for a quarter of the money he could make - for what? to earn the respect of the supporters? Those fellas who will cheer him when he scores and give him hell after a very few bad matches? Don't be silly. He has 6, maybe 8 years, to make the maximum out of his talent, i blame no one if he takes that chance. Being a supporter is all very well, but there is still this thing called reality.
It is improving, but it is not on the level of the countries top academies like the ones of Schalke, Stuttgart or Wolfsburg. We do have a very good scouting network for talents, though, which has helped us immensively in the past.
The current crop of young guns around Hofmann, Sarr and Durm looks promising and I personally hope that we will try to sign the biggest German striker talent Kevin Volland as one of Lewandoski´s successors (I think we will buy two strikers).
I commend your calmness. Rooney is entering the last 18 months and he's currently our best player, by some distance. I'd rather he left for less than his value in the summer than keep him and he signs for City for free in January. Even more annoying if they had taken our best player, in the previous summer.
I think everyone is happy that this is now officially over, even though it was an open secret that Lewandowski would join Bayern. It will be interesting to see if Mandzukic will be happy with his backup role or if he can even stay ahead of Lewandowski. Especially after Lewandowski's mixed performances this year I'm far from convinced that he will just walk into Bayern's first team.
Like Sphaero said I would also love to see Dortmund go for Volland. I think he would fit into their team quite well.
Like Sphaero said I would also love to see Dortmund go for Volland. I think he would fit into their team quite well.
Look at the three players now and yea, it looks pretty horrible. This is all result of owners who want results for minimum investment. It is Manchester Uniteds own fault.
With regard to the matter of this thread, he is a sensational signing for Bayern and taking into account that yhey could become the first side to retain the big ears, I can see them winning 3 out of the next 5 CL at least. They have that good a team.
This looks like terrible news for the German league. Not that it's a surprise, but it's still a sad state of affairs. Who will be able to challenge Bayern in the near future? There's no team with the spending power to get closer to them and the last 6 months they've crippled the only team that looked capable of consistently challenging them. The next few years could become very boring in Germany.
Yeah they probably will be fairly boring. Dortmund needs to fight for second place now and see that they can stabilize a place among the top3 over a long period of time, the CL money will help them grow financially and if they can get a few more good runs in the CL they will be an attractive club for a lot of players across Europe.
The only thing that can really stop Bayern in the coming years is if they get too confident of their top spot or fail to replace key players with similar quality, Ribery and Robben could both be such a case, but the rest of the team is young and could sit on top of the Bundesliga and Europe for years to come.
We'll see though, Bayern has been the favorite for every season in the Bundesliga as long as I can remember and they didn't always manage to win it though. Non the less the Quality of the squad as well as the squad depth of Bayern atm is miles ahead of any team in Germany so the most interesting part will probably be the fight for the CL spots behind them between Dortmund, Gladbach, Leverkusen and maybe even Wolfsburg, it will be interesting to see if Dortmund can hold their second spot or someone will overtake them as the number two team in Germany.
How can Dortmund fans accept this guy still playing for them until May? Dortmund really are Bayern's bitch. It would never happen in this country.
Arsenal? Also I don't think the PL ever had a team as strong as today's Bayern.
Schweinsteiger and Lahm are just as old as Ribery and Robben. Right now Bayern look invincible, but things change quickly in football. Barca had a similar perspective after Pep joined them (amazing team, great youth setup, tearing even good teams apart), yet they 'only' won/made the final twice since then. Things tend to change very quickly in football..
Volland seems like a very natural signing for Dortmund, I was a bit surprised they didn't sign him already last summer. However given how important Lewandowski is/was for the team they should probably sign a second, more experienced, striker as well.
I don't get the comparisons to English football or Arsenal, it's all so different.
It would be comparable if Kühne finally gave some real money to Hamburg, let's say 300-400m, then Hamburg would start buying Dortmund players and most of the quality players that now might consider joining Dortmund, followed by VW a few years later deciding to spend crazy money in Wolfsburg, let's say 500m, so that Wolfsburg starts buying Dortmund players as well. Then I can start ridiculing Dortmund for not winning a trophy for 8 years and when we finally buy a player of them, I can say, it doesn't matter, they aren't rivals anymore. Maybe we should ask the neutral German football fan or even better the Dortmund fans, if they prefer that to what lies ahead of them right now?
It would be comparable if Kühne finally gave some real money to Hamburg, let's say 300-400m, then Hamburg would start buying Dortmund players and most of the quality players that now might consider joining Dortmund, followed by VW a few years later deciding to spend crazy money in Wolfsburg, let's say 500m, so that Wolfsburg starts buying Dortmund players as well. Then I can start ridiculing Dortmund for not winning a trophy for 8 years and when we finally buy a player of them, I can say, it doesn't matter, they aren't rivals anymore. Maybe we should ask the neutral German football fan or even better the Dortmund fans, if they prefer that to what lies ahead of them right now?
He's now signed his contract with Bayern though.
I don't know what you mean.
Everybody in Dortmund knew he wanted to leave, the question was when. Watzke didn't want to sell both Goetze and him the same summer (both to Bayern!), so they didn't let him join their main opponents before the season and now in January (it means Dortmund get nothing for Lewandowski, as his 4-year deal expires after the season).
They said 'we won't sell you' and gave him a pay rise (he's one of their most important player and he was still on €1.8m a year he was given when he arrived there as a promising striker from Polish league). €7m a year clearly motivates a player who wanted to leave and let's be honest, Dortmund are not losers. Maybe they haven't won, but they couldn't sell Goetze and Lewandowski the same season.
Is it really that different from United fans accepting Ronaldo at the club for the 08/09 season despite him wanting to move on and clearly having signed some sort of pre-contract agreement?
If you are referring to RVP it is different because he didn't sign a pre-contract with us, it was an unlikely transfer between the 2 clubs but it is not the same as the Lewa situation.
Agreed. Bayern just hoover up 80% of the best footballers in Germany, it's obscene how far it is from a level playing field. When people pointing to United doing similar, that's a blatant exaggeration. We have nowhere near the monopoly on the league that Bayern enjoy.
Well Ronaldo hadn't officially signed for Real so it's different. Different situation. We didn't definitely know he was leaving, like we know Lewa is going. Ronaldo may have signed some sort of secret agreement at the time but it was never made official so we had to give him the benefit of the doubt. His flirting was annoying and pretty disrespectful towards the club but he got his head down and still produced on the pitch when the 'agreement' was made between him and SAF, albeit he didn't perform quite to the 07-08 levels and showed some petulance at times through that season. Remains to be seen if Lewa does the same. He has signed an official contract to leave for nothing with their nearest rivals yet he'll still be playing for Dortmund, it just find it bizarre and it would never be accepted by fans in this country in my opinion. Maybe we take football too seriously over here, I don't know.
Reus signed in January for Dortmund and still played the rest of the season for Gladbach and it wasn't a problem at all. Players go on loan all the time and in Germany play against their 'parentclubs' in the league and in cup competitions without any problems. The players aren't fans of their clubs, most (Lewandowski certainly is) are egoistic professionals and Lewandowski surely would love to win as much as possible with Dortmund and won't care what happens at Bayern this season. He always was a mercenary, so why should there be any questionmarks about his performances for the rest of the season?
The situation is different but not miles apart, IMO. There was no public agreement with Ronaldo - although the "secret" agreement was mentioned by plenty of sources in late 2008 - but on the other hand Lewandowski wasn't flirting with Bayern in the media year after year, so it goes both ways. Ronaldo said this three years before he eventually moved on, so we always knew he wanted to go to Spain.
I don't think you can say it remains to be seen with Lewandowski. 16 goals and 6 assists in 24 starts shows he's being professional. At this stage of the season Ronaldo had 10 goals and 6 assists.
Why does the public pre-contract issue take it to another level? Both players didn't want to play for their club, both players wanted to move on to a more glamorous club, both players made the decision to move before playing another full season.
I don't think you can say it remains to be seen with Lewandowski. 16 goals and 6 assists in 24 starts shows he's being professional. At this stage of the season Ronaldo had 10 goals and 6 assists.
We really have to believe we are going to sign Rooney up for 4 more years if we weren't in for
Lewandowski ourselves. Even than, Van Persie is no spring chicken..
Its sad to see dortmund being dismantled and bayern getting even stronger/Anyway no time for sentiment, lets get Gundogan & Reus!
Lewandowski ourselves. Even than, Van Persie is no spring chicken..
Its sad to see dortmund being dismantled and bayern getting even stronger/Anyway no time for sentiment, lets get Gundogan & Reus!
Thing is, we were. We've sent them an offer for both Lewandowski and RVP as far as I'm concerned and they didn't agree to let Lewandowski go.
Meanwhile, amount of abuse he gets on facebook, from people who seem to have all feck to do with BVB, is more than absurd.
So it's fair to say that Dortmund fans aren't taking his defection well
How nice of them to leave the break pads.
What a pointless exercise from Dortmund fans.And the bricks under the car. You just don't get quality vandalism like this nowadays.
Someone must be happy with his new tyres though.
And that's after he's had fairly good match and scored 2 goals against their opponents.
How did the whole case of him allegedly hitting some kid go in Germany?
How did the whole case of him allegedly hitting some kid go in Germany?
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