Can Bayern possibly recover from losing Lewandowski to Barcelona?
FT Desk
- Updated: 18 Mar 2022 10:59 CDT
- 7 min read
Bayern Munich may soon be forced to acknowledge the very real risk of losing star striker Robert Lewandowski in this summer’s transfer window.
FootballTransfers understands that the Poland international has now moved to the top of Barcelona’s shopping list, after the Catalan giants pulled out of negotiations with Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland.
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As such, Barca will be gunning for Bayern’s star talisman and may well be able to tempt him to Spain a whole 12 months before his contract in Munich comes to an end.
But, presuming Bayern are willing to cash in on the striker, how will the Bundesliga giants possibly manage to replace him?
The European question
While Bayern may do just fine in the Bundesliga without a player of Lewandowski’s talent leading the line, the club’s ability to challenge in the Champions League could be severely limited without the Poland international.
As we saw in last year’s competition, when Lewandowski was injured for both quarter-final legs against Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern certainly had enough to challenge another top team in Europe but clearly lacked the kind of decisive performance that the striker has become known for.
Perhaps the Bavarian giants could have overcome their French rivals if they weren’t forced to rely upon Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting over 180 minutes of football, but there are also serious question marks over the club’s ability to even sign a top replacement for Lewandowski if he were to leave this summer.
Financial struggles after COVID
The biggest issue with Lewandowski leaving the Munich side this summer is that Bayern couldn’t possibly hope to replace their star striker with a like-for-like replacement.
While other clubs can rely on rich owners or entire states to fund their transfer activity, the Munich giants have to balance the books and when we couple that with their efforts to offer Leon Goretzka, Joshua Kimmich and Kingsley Coman new contracts in the past 12 months it means Bayern simply don’t have the spending power to go out and buy the best players in the world.
For example, when asked about the prospect of the club signing Haaland this summer, club chairman Oliver Kahn completely dismissed the idea. “Sorry, but those who are talking about (Haaland’s transfer) still haven’t understood the situation,” Kahn told German newspaper Bild late last year. “A transfer estimated at more than 100 million euros is absolutely unthinkable for Bayern at the moment.”
