Bundesliga enters new season bereft of Lewandowski and Haaland fire power

Robert Lewandowski wore a wry grin. Whatever he tried, his first goal for Barcelona was stubbornly absent. A shot skimmed over the crossbar. Thumping efforts were kept out by the New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Carlos Coronel. “He’s frustrated,” admitted his head coach, Xavi Hernandez, after Saturday’s friendly, “but the goals will come.”

A few hours earlier, in Leicester, Pep Guardiola was giving Erling Haaland the same reassurance. Haaland had missed a wonderful chance, fluffed a connection with a cross and ended up on the losing side in his competitive debut for Manchester City, the Community Shield against Liverpool.

“Another time, he will put it in the net,” said Guardiola, the City manager, of his club’s new centre-forward. “It’s good for him to see the reality in a new country and a new league.”

In the country and the league Lewandowski and Haaland have just left, you’ll hear few doubts that the ex-Bayern Munich striker, lured to Barcelona, and the former Dortmund prodigy, signed by City, will rack up plenty of goals in the months to come.

In the Bundesliga, which begins its 60th season on Friday, Haaland and Lewandowski were the outstanding global stars who set breathtaking records.

Lewandowski‘s 41 goals in a single league campaign, set in 2020-21, shattered a landmark that had existed for nearly half a century. Haaland struck a hat-trick on his Bundesliga debut, aged 19, having been introduced as a 56th-minute substitute for Dortmund.

Haaland never looked back: his average strike-rate across his two-and-a-half years in Germany’s top division was better than a goal per game. Ditto Lewandowski’s hit-rate in six of the last seven seasons.

To be deprived of both, one in the mature stage of his career - Lewandowski