Image via @FCBarcelona on Twitter
His winning goal in the 93rd minute against Valencia last night was Robert Lewandowski’s 13th goal in 12 matches for Barcelona, and it was sorely needed after a challenging week for both player and club.
Knocked out of the Champions League before they even kicked-off on Wednesday night, Barca looked like they were going through the motions against Bayern Munich, and even had the overturned penalty decision gone the other way Barcelona would still probably have failed to mount any kind of pride-restoring comeback.
Last night against Valencia at the Mestalla felt like many of the matches they have played this season, full of bad decisions and the sense Lewandowski has to do everything. In the first half, he nearly got an assist but for Ansu Fati to have scored from an offside position, and Lewy could have scored himself had his header not hit the base of the post.
The second half saw Valencia put up more fight, including scoring a goal disallowed for handball, and it looked for all the world like Barca would fail to win yet again. Lewandowski was still at the heart of everything, linking the play and bringing his team up the pitch. Were it not for Ferran Torres and a glaring miss from about four yards, and Raphinha deciding to bundle Lewy out of the way to blaze the ball over the bar, the game would’ve been wrapped up by Lewandowski about ten minutes earlier than it was.
Raphinha kindly repaid the debt of that error, putting in the ball from which Lewandowski stretched out to poke home halfway through stoppage time. It was another display of Lewy’s athleticism, and was another confirmation of the variety of his goalscoring abilities.
I think this week was the first time people seriously questioned Lewandowski’s decision to join Barcelona, and that kind of criticism is fair. Oftentimes it reminds me of him playing with the Polish national team, in that the amount expected of him is sometimes obscene. His time at Barca so far has been characterised by him playing with young, talented teammates who are still a step away from the elite level, players who haven’t played at this level and are taking time to adjust, and in the case of Ousmane Dembele someone who has his moments, but is so unrelentingly selfish he barely passes the ball.
The second half of this season has to go off without a hitch for Barcelona. Winning La Liga and the Europa League is almost a must, and failure to win at least one of those trophies will be catastrophic for the club. The good news is that the team will develop, and one thing we can be sure of is that Lewandowski will more often than not come up with a goal when needed.
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