Robert Lewandowski opens up on his decision to leave Bayern Munich for Barcelona

Robert Lewandowski opened his account for Barcelona on Sunday evening at Camp Nou. The Catalan club routed Mexican outfit Pumas in the final of the Joan Gamper Trophy, winning 6-0. The Pole scored the opening goal in just the third minute of the tie.

That proved to be a moment that opened the floodgates – Pedri scored a second for Barcelona two minutes later before Ousmane Dembele added a third five minutes after that. Pedri scored his second of the evening in the 19th to round out a fine first half.

The second half continued in the same vein. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got in on the action four minutes into it before Frenkie de Jong put the uncertainty about his future to one side to complete the evisceration six minutes from the final whistle.

Lewandowski is a serious signing for Barcelona. The 33-year-old Polish marksman scored 344 goals in 375 appearances for Bayern Munich during his time there and has become one of the most lethal forwards in the European game. He’ll score goals in La Liga.

And he’s delighted to be there. “I always wanted to play in La Liga, live in Spain, see what life is like here,” Lewandowski said in comments carried by Diario Sport. “12 years in Germany is a long time. I achieved everything there. I didn’t want to stand in front of the mirror in 12 years and ask myself: ‘Why haven’t you tried?’ There would be a lot of unanswered questions.”

He also explained that his wife, Anna, was a pivotal influence when it came to making a decision to come to Spain. “It’s clear that we have to decide everything together. We had been talking about this possibility for weeks. We’ve never closed ourselves off to new chapters, we wanted a new challenge. We know how quickly time passes in the career of an elite athlete and we wanted to do something new, something big. It’s not something that happened overnight but a process of maturation.”