I’ll admit, even I wasn’t aware of who he was when this news broke in 2010, but you can bet your bottom dollar, we all know who he is now!
Now discoverable as perhaps the best striker in world football, Robert Lewandowski has most certainly had to work his way to the top of the game. So, where he now sits perched above most goal-scorers in the land, it pays to remember just how far he’s come in the Central European leagues to be where he is now.
Joining Borussia Dortmund in 2010, it didn’t take long for the domineering Pole to make an impression at BVB; scoring a goal on his debut to send his new club on a well-deserved 3-1 win over Schalke in the RevierDerby. Perhaps that’s where he developed that knack of scoring in the big occasions, but for sure, it started to repay the faith in some of his yellow supporters that he was worth the €4.5 million required to bring him there. Especially when moves for him to go elsewhere were breaking down all over the continent!
Aside from the story at hand, it’s widely believed that Serie A club Genoa were interested in Robert Lewandowski before neither party decided to pursue negotiations after a fee was agreed. But the one that went very, very far was a projected move for the big man to move to the big bad world of the English Premier League.
So, who wanted him then? Chelsea? Maybe Manchester United? Pair him up with Rooney and those guys over there? Hmm … not quite. Instead, it’s come out that he was close to moving to a side that were trying to get to the likes of where the Chelseas and Uniteds of the world were used to being. Of course, I’m talking about none other than the mighty Lancashire side, Blackburn Rovers – then in the early stages of their Venky ownership.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a prosperous football takeover as much as the next guy – and we’ve even spoken before on Ultra UTD about the likes of Queen’s Park Rangers who had what it took to really make a go of their new era in the proper way – but the Venky’s were something else. But they did have Sam Allardyce as manager, so …
Not just that, they also had the well-respect Martyn Glover as their Head of Recruitment. Who explains: “We’d seen a lot of Robert Lewandowski and we knew we were dealing with a top-class striker” and was quick to organise a move between all parties involved for a £4million move to relocate him to Blackburn. But then, it all went wrong!
With everything pretty much signed and sealed for Robert Lewandowski to move to Blackburn, the only thing left was for him to be delivered to Ewood Park – quite literally in this case. However, in order to do that, he would need to fly from Poland to Lancashire in order to agree personal terms and complete his medical before the transfer would become official. But remember that big ol’ Icelandic volcano that erupted that year? Yeah …
In a turn of events that seems like something the craziest of writers would have deemed ‘too far-fetched for print’, the mountain by the name of Eyjafjallajökull (catchy, innit?) decided to go ahead and erupt and disrupt everyone’s plans. Travellers were stranded in most European territories as the ash cloud gathered pace, including a young Robert Lewandowski who had his flight delayed and cancelled. All the while, his agents got working, got a move to Germany sorted in principle and they travelled there … without the use of the plane. Mental, isn’t it?