Chapter 1 Robert Lewandowski

Robert Lewandowski transferred to Borussia Dortmund from the Polish powerhouse Lech Poznań in the summer of 2010 for a transfer fee of 4.75 million euros. At the time, this price tag was the most Dortmund spent in the transfer market that summer.

However, in the entire Bundesliga transfer market that summer, that amount of money was not enough to even raise eyebrows.

The Bundesliga summer transfer king that year belonged to Wolfsburg's Brazilian midfielder Diego, who cost the Wolves 15.5 million euros to bring him from Juventus to Germany.

The second highest transfer fee was Schalke 04's acquisition of Huntelaar from AC Milan. The Dutch striker cost Magath 14 million euros.

Lewandowski, who arrived at Dortmund with a relatively inconspicuous transfer fee, did not make a splash right away, much like his price tag. Despite being the top scorer in the Polish Premier League before arriving at Dortmund, scoring eighteen goals in twenty-eight league appearances.

He was at a disadvantage in the competition with Barrios and Marc Wagner.

However, Lady Luck ultimately favored the Polish center forward.

Barrios was squeezed out of the starting position by Marc, who was in excellent form, but then Marc suffered a serious injury when his form was on the rise, giving Lewandowski a chance to step up.

The 2011-2012 season had just begun when the main striker from the previous season, Marc Wagner, was seriously injured while playing for the national team, ending his season. Fate played a joke on Marc and then pushed Lewandowski to center stage.

Lewandowski seized this opportunity and became Klopp's most trusted forward killer with one goal after another. The 2011-2012 season was the season when Lewandowski officially became Dortmund's main forward. In this season, Lewandowski played thirty-four league games, scoring twenty-two goals, and also had eight assists. He played six times in the German Cup, scoring seven goals, especially in the German Cup final, facing the powerful Bayern Munich, he completed a hat-trick, helping Dortmund win 5:2 against Bayern Munich, and lifted the German Cup trophy.

His outstanding performance made people almost forget about Marc Wagner, who was injured and absent for a season.

When Lewandowski transferred to Dortmund, his annual salary was 1.5 million euros before tax. After Dortmund defended their league title in the 2011-2012 season, this salary was completely disproportionate to Lewandowski's ability.

In fact, as early as the 2011-2012 season, Borussia Dortmund had already started to renew Lewandowski's contract. After Marc's serious injury, Lewandowski became Dortmund's only reliance on the front line, so Dortmund certainly wanted to find a way to renew Lewandowski's contract.

Lewandowski also felt that the salary of 1.5 million euros was too low and hoped to get more.

Since both parties had the need to renew the contract and had the same goal, as long as they worked hard, they believed they could reach an agreement.

But the result was contrary to expectations.

Borussia Dortmund hoped to renew Lewandowski's contract until 2017 and offered a new contract.

However, Lewandowski was not satisfied with the conditions proposed by the club. He hoped to get an annual salary of three million euros, which was the same as the team captain Kehl.

Lewandowski's request was rejected by Borussia Dortmund, who were unwilling to give Lewandowski an annual salary of three million euros, believing that Lewandowski was not worth the price.

Moreover, Lewandowski's agent publicly complained to the media about Dortmund's approach, which made Dortmund even more furious. Club CEO Watzke said in response: "Yes, the club has provided the player with a contract renewal offer, but agent Kuharski is not satisfied. But I still want to tell him that publicly complaining to the outside world during the renewal process is not a good approach."

The contract renewal negotiations between the two parties fell into a deadlock.

At that time, Dortmund obviously did not pay too much attention to Lewandowski. Their focus was on renewing the contracts of Götze and Zhou Yi.

Lewandowski's agent secured an oral promise from Dortmund for Lewandowski – since the two sides could not renew the contract, Dortmund should allow Lewandowski to find a new club on his own. As long as a team's offer reached or exceeded 25 million euros, Dortmund should allow Lewandowski to leave.

Since Lewandowski's contract with Dortmund was due to expire in the summer of 2014, Lewandowski should be allowed to leave Dortmund in the summer of 2013.

Which is this summer.

At that time, the 2011-2012 season hadn't even ended yet, so how could the Borussia Dortmund club executives think so much?

Perhaps they didn't think that any team would be willing to pay 25 million euros for Lewandowski's transfer fee. You know, Şahin, as Dortmund's core player, only cost 10 million euros when he transferred to Real Madrid.

So the Borussia Dortmund club executives agreed and made an oral promise.

Subsequently, Lewandowski's agent began to work hard for Lewandowski's new club, determined to make Lewandowski leave Dortmund.

Although Lewandowski's performance continued to be outstanding in the new season, making the Dortmund executives a little regretful, they still had to honor their words, so Dortmund did not take any other actions. Anyway, they felt that if a club was really willing to pay 25 million to buy Lewandowski, then it might not be impossible to sell him.

Twenty-five million was still a "huge sum" for Dortmund, who wished they could split every penny in half – their 17.5 million euros to poach Reus from Borussia Mönchengladbach was the largest transfer expense since the club's reconstruction work in 2005.

And Lewandowski's agent was indeed capable. They finally found a new club willing to pay 25 million euros for Lewandowski - Bayern Munich.

Lewandowski's agent Kuharski once publicly announced to the Polish media: "I can guarantee you that Lewandowski will play for a bigger club next season. I hope the two clubs can finally reach an agreement."

Kuharski's partner, Bartel, also clearly stated: "We have accepted an invitation from another club, and Lewandowski is preparing to transfer this summer."

Although the two agents did not directly point it out, everyone knew that the next home they were talking about was Bayern Munich.

According to a report in the Bild newspaper, Lewandowski's agent had reached an agreement with Bayern Munich, and the two sides would sign a four-year contract.

Faced with the statements of Lewandowski's agent and the content of the Bild newspaper's report, Borussia Dortmund did not react, and everything seemed to be progressing smoothly.

But things changed after Bayern Munich activated the termination fee clause in Götze's contract and forcibly poached Götze.

After Götze was destined to leave the team, if the team's number one shooter was also released, the damage to the team's strength would be huge.

Borussia Dortmund was unwilling to take such a risk. So they restarted the contract renewal work with Lewandowski, hoping to keep Lewandowski.

This time, the new contract they provided to Lewandowski had an astonishing seven million written in the annual salary section!

This figure has surpassed Götze, who is determined to leave the team, and become the team's highest salary.

It seems that Götze's sudden departure to Bayern Munich did make the Borussia Dortmund club panic, and offering such a sky-high annual salary contract was hoping to impress Lewandowski with money. At this time, they couldn't care about financial health, although this word had been used by them many times to deal with players' contract renewal and salary increase requests... It seems really ironic...

But how could Lewandowski's agent, who had already reached an agreement with Bayern Munich, give up the contract that had already been negotiated? Although Dortmund had suppressed Bayern Munich in terms of performance in recent years, in the eyes of most people, Bayern Munich surpassed Dortmund in terms of financial resources, fame, and status.

Lewandowski going to Bayern Munich was certainly more promising than staying at Dortmund - at that time, Bayern Munich was still leading Dortmund in the league standings, and Dortmund was not sure that they could reach the Champions League final.

As a result, Lewandowski staged an amazing four goals in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid. While creating history, it also made the Borussia Dortmund club even more flustered - if Lewandowski was allowed to leave now, the Borussia Dortmund club executives would probably receive razor blades from Borussia Dortmund fans...

So they continued to put pressure on Lewandowski.

In this situation, Lewandowski's agent, Kuharski, had no choice but to reveal to the media that they had an oral agreement with the Borussia Dortmund club that as long as other clubs offered Lewandowski 25 million euros this summer, Dortmund would let him go.

Lewandowski's agent hoped to regain the initiative through such a move.

As a result, Dortmund's CEO Watzke did not admit the existence of such an agreement at all: "... Transfers not only depend on the player's wishes, but also on the club's ideas. We have not received any formal offers so far. Lewandowski also has a contract with the club that expires in 2014, and there are no termination clauses in the contract..."

Watzke's statement made Kuharski very dissatisfied. The Polish agent said in an interview with Der Spiegel: "Dortmund had previously assured us that they would agree to the player's transfer this summer as long as the transfer fee reached a certain amount. We will insist that the club fulfill its promise."

The two sides just butted heads like this.

At that time, because the season had not ended, the contradictions had not been intensified, and both sides had intended to control the scale.

For example, Lewandowski himself said after this incident: "I want to dedicate my goals in the Champions League semi-final to my deceased father. I always dedicate them to him whenever I score important goals. We still have several rounds of Bundesliga matches below, as well as Champions League matches, which are the most important. As for the transfer situation, let's wait and see what happens in the future, but I will not comment on this..."

Now that the season is over, Dortmund has won the league title and the Champions League title, there is nothing that can prevent the club and Lewandowski's agent from tearing each other apart.

As a result, the media dug up the issue of Lewandowski's destination and hyped it up, becoming a big headache for the Borussia Dortmund club this summer.