By any measure, Robert Lewandowski has had a successful career: In Gregg Berhalter’s opening remarks introducing Robert Lewandowski to gathered media, the Fire head coach noted that Lewandowski had “scored over 700 goals” in his career, “the most goals in the top five leagues [in world soccer] in the last 5 years.” The team’s newest addition, he said, had won the UEFA bChampions League, “13 league titles and countless other titles” in his time in Poland, Germany and Spain.
But what does success look like for Robert Lewandowski’s time in MLS?
The bar is, in many ways, high: Lewandowski is the biggest signing in Chicago Fire team history by almost any measure: He is the most expensive Fire player ever. He is far and away the most prolific goalscorer to ever be on the team’s roster.
Lewandowski’s name recognition eclipses that of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Xherdan Shaqiri, two former teammates of his at Bayern Munich who preceded him in Chicago, who, along with Ballon d’Or winner Hristo Stoichkov and Cuauhtémoc Blanco, would be the other candidates on the list.
The only one of those names to win a trophy with Chicago was Stoichko, who won the U.S. Open Cup with the team in 2000.
That fits in with a broader trend, where success away from MLS has often been poor a predictor of success in the league: Zlatan Ibrahimović won 34 club titles in Europe, but none in his time with the LA Galaxy. Thierry Henry, David Villa, Kaká and Wayne Rooney all left the league without trophies.
That is, of course, not the only measure of success – and Lewandowski knows it.
“In the end, the title is one thing, but also how we’re going to play for the people, for the fans, that will be very interesting,” the Polish superstar said when asked about how he’d define a successful tenure with the Fire on Tuesday. “Not only winning, but also scoring some goals, doing an amazing job on the pitch, creating situations” for attractive soccer.
“In football,” Lewandowski said, “it’s not only what you are doing on the pitch, but off the pitch as well. And with my knowledge about football,” he said, “I can try to help everyone at the club if I can. So I can always say what I see, what I’m thinking, if that can help the team, if that can help someone, if I do this, I am doing it with pleasure.”
Berhalter echoed that sentiment when asked the same question. “When we look back at Robert’s time here, there are a couple ways that we can evaluate success. I think the first thing is with the locker room. What type of influence does he have on his teammates? The players get to play with a player who’s played at the absolute highest level for over a decade and a half, and you don’t get that every day.”
“We hope that permeates throughout the entire club,” the Fire head coach said. “The Academy kids, when they’re walking by the training field, and they get to see Robert at work, something rubs off on them. So, it really has a big effect on the entire Club.”
That was, in many ways, the most modest of measures of success that Berhalter laid out for his new player. “The second thing would be a connection to the city and the fans.”
The Fire hope that Lewandowski’s signing will rekindle the connection to Chicago’s Polish community that started when Piotr Nowak became the first signing in team history and create a connection to soccer-savvy fans that recognize Lewandowski’s name from his time at the top of the sport in Europe.
Arguably, the most important players in MLS history are David Beckham and Lionel Messi. Other plays have won more trophies, but their ability to raise the profile of their teams – and the league as a whole – far eclipses their on-field exploits.
That is the kind of impact that the Fire hope that Lewandowski brings. “We want to create something special for the city of Chicago, and Robert is a massive piece of that.”
Ticket sales have been brisk for the Fire’s game against Vancouver tomorrow, in what is likely to be Lewandowski’s debut, with the team expecting nearly 35,000 at Soldier Field. Lewandowski’s profile will help capture the city’s attention – but keeping it will require more.
“The third thing,” Berhalter said, “of course, is going to be winning. Robert’s won his entire career, and there’s going to be a certain measurement. Did we win with him? Everywhere he’s been, he’s won titles,” something Beckham did and Messi has continued to do in MLS.
Baseball teams aside, Chicago has long loved a winner: The Chicago Blackhawks were an afterthought in Chicago’s sports landscape after decades without success while languishing away from the limelight of TV, regularly posting some of the lowest attendance in the league. That changed in rapid succession in the 2010s when the team started winning, with the United Center featuring capacity crowds years after the team’s most recent trophy was won.
Berhalter said that Lewandowski told him that “every year of his career, he’s won a title,” so, he said “there’s no pressure on us, right?” Whether or not a title comes this year, a history of success can go a long ay to cementing good will and keeping crowds.
And, of, course, Berhalter homed in on the metric that Lewandowski is known best for: “then finally, knowing Robert the way I do, success is largely measured with him by how he scores goals. He’s a prolific scorer for a reason – he loves to score goals. That’s definitely going to be a measurement that we’re going to be looking at. But that, I’m probably the most confident that he’s going to do.”
