Robert Lewandowski News and Analysis

The most difficult player for Barcelona to replace

13Nov

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

Features, LaLiga

The most difficult player for Barcelona to replace

With 40 goals through their first 13 La Liga matches and 15 in 4 Champions League fixtures, Barcelona are averaging well over three goals per game to kick off the Hansi Flick era and are thus on pace to break some attacking records. Step aside MSN, because the quintet of Lamine Yamal, Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, Dani Olmo, and Pedri are leading the way for a Barcelona attack that is rapid-fire, multi-faceted, highly athletic, technical, and absolutely devastating on the counterattack. Yamal is the crown jewel of this Barcelona side as a 17-year-old who already has a serious case for being the world's best, especially since the entire attack floundered without him in a rare shutout defeat to Real Sociedad 1-0 this past Sunday. But as brilliant as Yamal is and as irreplaceable as ...

Barcelona are dropping one of their dream transfer targets now

8Nov

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

LaLiga

Barcelona are dropping one of their dream transfer targets now

Barcelona president Joan Laporta had one aim when he took his old job back, and that was to get the Blaugrana back on top in European football after their standard had slipped to an embarrassing and entirely unacceptable level. Now in 2024/25, Barcelona look almost recognizable to the club that was first kept afloat by Lionel Messi and then later mired in losses during the 2021/22 season after he had left for Paris. Barcelona are fresh off demolitions of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid - two European powers who consistently had their number over the past five years - and they are by far the favorites to win the Spanish league. Hansi Flick has turned Barcelona back to its status as appointment television, as with the elite attacking trident of veteran striker Robert Lewandowski, brea...

The 3 Barcelona stars who have benefited the most from Hansi Flick

10Oct

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Features, LaLiga

The 3 Barcelona stars who have benefited the most from Hansi Flick

ST Robert Lewandowski This isn't Robert Lewandowski's first time working with Hansi Flick, as he was the centerpiece goal-scorer of the 2019/20 Flick-led Bayern Munich side that rampaged through European football and won the treble. Lewandowski came into the 2024/25 LaLiga season with a bevy of critics despite being by far Barca's best attacking player in the 2023/24 season, and that's largely because he earns more than 30 million euros per season with options that escalate. Now 36 years old, Lewandowski has undoubtedly heard the cries that he is "finished", and the Polish No. 9 has answered them accordingly, scoring 10 goals through the first 9 league games while providing the kind of all-around quality that a lot Barcelona fans unfairly doubted. Remember, Lewandowski has a comb...

Ranking the 10 best strikers in the world in 2024

3Oct

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Champions League, Features

Ranking the 10 best strikers in the world in 2024

Who are the best strikers in world football right now? With two months of action in the books in the 2024/25 league seasons, let's take an updated look at the best No. 9's on the planet, ranking them from tenth to first. Where did Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane land? How does Ollie Watkins stack up with the elites? 10. Andrej Kramaric, Hoffenheim For years, Andrej Kramaric has been one of the best strikers in the Bundesliga, setting records as a goal-scorer for Hoffenheim without showing any desire to leave the German side. Kramaric makes this list over bigger names like Alvaro Morata and Dusan Vlahovic, because he honestly outplayed both of those guys significantly last season and has already been better to start the 2023/24 season. The problem with world football these days is...

Ranking the 9 best goal-scoring Bundesliga seasons of the 2020s decade so far

10Sep

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Bundesliga, Features

Ranking the 9 best goal-scoring Bundesliga seasons of the 2020s decade so far

Even though the Bundesliga season is actually the shortest of any top five league since there are only 18 teams in the first division, meaning every team plays four fewer games per season, the German top flight has become known for gaudy goal-scoring statistics. But in case anyone keeps trying to apply the "Bundesliga tax" to downplay the accomplishments of top strikers in German football, Erling Haaland quickly dispelled that notion by breaking the single-season Premier League goals record in his first season with Manchester City, scoring more goals (36) than he ever did with Borussia Dortmund. Haaland is actually the only Dortmund player who scored at least 20 goals in a single season in the 2020s decade, and while there's only been four completed seasons in the 2020s, that speaks ...

Barcelona’s highest-rated players in FC25 are an absolute joke

25Aug

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

Features, LaLiga

Barcelona’s highest-rated players in FC25 are an absolute joke

EA Sports's offering of the football video game FC25 will become available next month on Sept. 27, and the player ratings are being leaked, with Barcelona fans, like any other fanbase, wondering just what in the heck the powers that be over at EA are thinking. It often seems like they aren't watching the games when they come up with the ratings, frequently biasing their evaluations towards aging players who are declining, failing to account for their slip in standard while, on the other hand, not rating up-and-coming superstars properly. Barcelona right winger Lamine Yamal was the best player at the European Championships and was arguably Barca's best player in the 2023/24 LaLiga season at the age of 16, yet he is only rated 81 despite already being a world-class winger. Meanwhile...

Transfers: Barca’s worst wage offenders; Why West Ham want Carlos Soler; Making sense of Joao Felix to Chelsea

21Aug

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Champions League, Features, LaLiga, Premier League

Transfers: Barca’s worst wage offenders; Why West Ham want Carlos Soler; Making sense of Joao Felix to Chelsea

Why are Chelsea going back for Joao Felix despite his 2023 flop? How might Carlos Soler help West Ham return to European football? And which three players are hurting Barcelona the most in the wage department? Here are the latest takes around the world football transfer rumor mill. Making sense of Joao Felix to Chelsea Leave it to Chelsea to make the most shocking transfer of the summer window, because for a fee of 45 million pounds, the Blues have agreed to bring Joao Felix back to Stamford Bridge...on a permanent basis. It's not like Felix set the Bridge on fire when he arrived in the second half of the 2022/23 season, nor is it as if he was such a rousing success at the Camp Nou either. Felix is who he is at this stage. A very talented, very limited playmaker who plays more f...

Who has the better career, Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Robert Lewandowski?

13Aug

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Bundesliga, Champions League, Features, LaLiga, Ligue 1, Premier League, Serie A

Who has the better career, Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Robert Lewandowski?

Strikers have always been the glamor players in world football, and over the last 20 years, few goal-scorers made as many headlines as Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Lewandowski is still going strong as one of the best strikers in Spanish football, likely finishing up his career with Barcelona after forcing a move away from Bayern Munich, where he became one of the greatest strikers of all time. Meanwhile, Zlatan, who also played for Barcelona briefly, is retired and enjoying the next step in his career as an executive for AC Milan, one of his former clubs. In fact, Zlatan played for all three powerhouses of Italian football, but perhaps his period was a largely overlooked tenure in Paris as the first face of the Qatari project before the arrivals of Neymar and Kylian Mba...

Ranking the 10 best Bayern Munich transfers since 2010

9Jul

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

Bundesliga, Features

Ranking the 10 best Bayern Munich transfers since 2010

Bayern Munich have turned winning into a tradition, to the point where their success is taken for granted more than at any other club in world football. One of the best-run organizations in professional sports, Bayern's excellence has recently been called into question after a host of rash managerial decisions, poor signings, and dysfunctional executives. But Bayern's track record of success in the 2010s decade speaks for itself, and looking at their list of transfers over the last 15 years provides a clear example of why they achieved consistent Champions League success and perennial Bundesliga dominance. Here are the 10 best transfers in Bayern Munich's recent history since 2010, ranked in order. 10. Leon Goretzka, CM Leon Goretzka helped lead Schalke to an unlikely second-pla...

Ranking the 10 best strikers in 2023/24: Inter Milan duo join Barça’s Lewandowski, Bayern’s Kane

25Oct

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Champions League, Features

Ranking the 10 best strikers in 2023/24: Inter Milan duo join Barça’s Lewandowski, Bayern’s Kane

Nobody generates more headlines than the players who score the goals. Most clubs with aspirations of winning trophies require a man up top who can consistently find the back of the net, with very few exceptions existing in the history of world football. But who are the best strikers on the planet right now? Let's rank the top 10, based on a combination of pedigree and performance in the 2023/24 season, more heavily weighing recent performances. Because sport is a "what have you done for me lately?" business. Note that only out-and-out strikers were included, so players like Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé who share time between positions or players like Vinícius Júnior who are wingers playing as left-sided forwards did not count. 10. Marcus Thuram, Inter Milan Marcus Thuram ...