Homage to BVB’s "greatest striker of the century"

The highlight of the season, however, is yet to come. In his last game for Borussia Dortmund, Robert Lewandowski will play against Bayern Munich, the club he is going to join on 1 July. The venue is Berlin’s Olympic stadium. The occasion is the DFB Cup final.  A promising thought for BVB, a not quite so promising one for FCB.

Almost exactly two years ago, Lewandowski put three goals past Bayern at the same place. It must have been when Bayern finally realised that this Lewandowski would look much better in a Bayern shirt.

“I’m looking forward to this game,“ had Lewandowski already said before the semi-final. He is looking forward to it because Borussia’s No9 is no Lothar Matthäus who, in his last game for Mönchengladbach, for some strange reason failed to find the net from 12 yards – in the DFB Cup final, against Bayern Munich, his future club. Lewandowski is different. Lewandowski has so far hit the net from all angles and distances.

He scored his 100th competitive goal for BVB in the cup semi-final against VfL Wolfsburg, his 101th came just four days later against Mainz in the Bundesliga. He netted 22 goals in the 2011/12 season, 24 in the 2012/13 campaign and a total of 29 in the year 2012 a feat no other BVB striker has accomplished this century. Not Amoroso. Not Koller. Not Ewerthon. Not Smolarek. Not Petric. Not Frei. And also not Barrios.

So in a way, Robert Lewandowski  is Borussia Dortmund’s greatest striker of the century.

But these numbers remain numbers. It is images that show just how valuable the Poland international is for BVB – the club with whom he won back-to-back Bundesliga titles, the DFB Cup and a place in the Champions League final. Images that must have burned themselves into the memory of every football fan.

Lewandowski controlling the ball: no matter whether the ball drops like a stone from the sky – it sticks to his foot; no matter whether is arrives like a bullet at waist level – it sticks on his chest like it had glue on it.

Robert Lewandowski has the perfect balance of body control and body movement, of power and art. There’s no striker in the Bundesliga, possibly the whole of Europe, who can make the first touch and control of the ball look so easy. Where other players need three touches, he needs just one. The ball arrives – Lewandowski, a second ago with his back to the goal and a leg in the air, controls, turns and shoots – goal. All in one move - just like that.

These images show Robert Lewandowski as a virtuoso, a conjurer. Others show him as a committed and hard-working player - when he’s not having the ball, when he’s chasing it. For his teammates. For the team.

Robert Lewandowski has always been like that. In 2012, he played in 45 of 46 matches, 44 of them in the starting eleven. In the first half of the 2012/13 Bundesliga season, he played in 16 of the 17 matches, 15 of them for the full 90 minutes. Weidenfeller didn’t achieve that. Neither did Hummels, Gündogan or Götze. Lewandowski, on the other hand, is running and running and running. Until the end.

“All this shows,“ said BVB chairman Hans-Joachim Watke a few weeks ago, “that it was the right decision to keep him until his contract runs out. His goals have generated more money than we could have made with his transfer fee last summer.” There is the money, but there are also all these unforgettable moments.

And who would have thought this was possible? After that first interview with two Dortmund journalists when his text messages seemed to be of greater importance than the short questions. Or after that announcement of him, clumsily translated from Polish to German, that he would not leave the club in the summer of 2013 which prompted many people to doubt his commitment in his last year at BVB.

At that time, Jürgen Klopp said something which was the truth – and which has remained the truth. “For me, it is much more important was he does than what he says.” Robert Lewandowski has given his everything all the time for Borussia Dortmund. There’s just one more thing to say: do it one more time, Lewy! On May 17th in Berlin. At the Olympic stadium. In the DFB Cup final. Against Bayern Munich.