The wait has been long, but finally Robert Lewandowski is already a Barcelona player for all purposes. The Polish striker had to wait two days in Miami for the principle of agreement reached with Bayern Munich last weekend to become official.
The club released the first images of Lewandowski dressed as a Blaugrana, who signs for four years and will have a clause of 500 million euros. He could even be seen in action for the first time in the warm-up of the match at the DRV PNK Stadium, where his new team thrashed Inter Miami (0-6) leaving a great image. While waiting for his goals, everything was very distributed: Aubameyang, Raphinha, Ansu Fati, Gavi, Memphis and Dembélé.
After being postponed at the Barça Academy in Miami due to the lack of a signature on all the signed contracts, Lewandowski's welcome ceremony before the displaced media will finally be this Wednesday (6:00 p.m. Spanish time). The official presentation will take place in style at the Spotify Camp Nou once the team returns from the tour of the United States. His debut is expected to be in the early hours of Saturday to Sunday against Real Madrid in Las Vegas.
While on the west coast there is euphoria, on the other side of the North American country there is a certain resentment. Bayern is in Washington DC preparing for its preseason. With those 45 million collected by Lewandowski they will pay Juventus a little more than half (70 10 million) of the transfer of Matthijs De Ligt, but the center-back will not forget the Pole's goals.
Julian Nagelsmann spoke in Washington about his former player and could not hide his astonishment at the signings (Kessie, Christensen, Raphinha and Lewandowski) that Barça is making when it was in a critical economic situation. "I don't know how they've signed so many players. It's the only club in the world that doesn't have money and can sign everything. It's weird and crazy, but they've found solutions. They have a better team than last year," he admitted.
The obstacles in the exit of the German club, which pressed to try to convince the player, was "a question of money". "He wanted the challenge and was free in a year. Of course it is complicated and we will miss him, but in the end it is not such a bad operation for Bayern," Nagelsmann concluded.
Barça is shaking the market at the level of Manchester City (109 million) thanks to economic levers. The second, scheduled for this week, corresponds to 15% of the television rights for 25 years assigned to Sixth Street, a fund that has already acquired 10% of the first lever. With that money they want to reinforce the defense. The targets are central defender Jules Koundé and Chelsea wingers César Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso.
Without striking exits at Barça, in order to register these new faces it will be necessary to activate the third lever, which would mean getting rid of 49% of Barça Studios or BLM (the company that manages Blaugrana merchandising.
