It has come out that Barcelona want to renew with Robert Lewandowski and, looking at it more objectively, this has all the ingredients to be a mistake, not one of those obvious ones at first glance, but the kind that, when you stop and analyse it, you start to see the real risk.
Lewandowski is 37 years old and is still a goal-scoring machine, no one disputes that. The problem is not the quality, it is everything else that comes with age. Giving a heavy contract to a player at this stage of his career is always a huge risk, because the physical decline is not a distant possibility, it is something that is already happening. This season has already shown that, with several injuries and increasingly inconsistent availability. And this will only get worse.
On top of that, we are talking about one of the highest salaries in the squad. Lewandowski is already the second highest-paid player at Barcelona and it is becoming clear that the cost does not match what he can consistently offer. Not because he is a bad player, far from it, but because he is no longer someone you can rely on match after match without thinking about the physical side.
There is also a factor that “inflates” his importance. Barcelona simply do not have another player with the same profile. The direct replacement is Ferran Torres, who offers different things, but is clearly limited in the striker role. He misses a lot, does not provide the same presence and that makes Lewandowski seem even more indispensable than he actually is. He is important, of course, but that does not justify renewing on the same terms or with such high figures.
And here comes another point, the squad structure. The financial situation at Barcelona is improving, but not to the point of justifying this kind of decision without thinking about the future. Ok, they cannot go and sign someone like Erling Haaland for 200 million, that is obvious, but they do not need to go to that level either. There are options on the market that could offer more balanced output, less physical risk and, probably, a much more controlled cost.
The problem is that renewing Lewandowski under these conditions is delaying a decision that the club will inevitably have to make. And the longer you delay it, the more expensive it can become.
Conclusion
It is not about quality, because Lewandowski is still a great player. It is about logic. A lot of money, a lot of physical risk and little guarantee of consistency. Barcelona are basically betting that he will continue to perform as before, when there are already clear signs that this is not sustainable. And that has every chance of going wrong.