A book about Robert Lewandowski has caused quite a stir in Spain and Poland. In the book Lewandowski: The Real One, it emerges that the Polish striker had to stop scoring for Barcelona in the 2022/23 season, because otherwise the club would have had to pay extra money to Bayern Munich.
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FC Barcelona vs Athletic Bilbao on 22 November 2025 at 16:15.
In the build-up to that match, a remarkable story about Robert Lewandowski and his first season at Barcelona has resurfaced and is once again being widely discussed in Spain and Poland. The claims come from the book Lewandowski: The Real One, in which it is alleged that the Polish striker was quietly urged by Barcelona to stop scoring goals in the final phase of the 2022/23 La Liga season in order to avoid paying extra money to Bayern Munich.
At that time Barcelona were in serious financial trouble. The club had activated several so-called economic levers, sold future income, reduced salaries and reshaped the squad just to be able to register new signings and remain competitive. Every euro mattered. According to the book, one of the most delicate points in Lewandowski’s transfer from Bayern to Barcelona was a bonus clause linked directly to his goal tally in La Liga.
The Catalan club would reportedly have had to pay an extra 2.5 million euros to Bayern if Lewandowski crossed the threshold of 25 league goals in that 2022/23 campaign. For a club in a stable and healthy financial situation such an amount might be considered a normal performance-related add-on. For Barcelona in that period, constantly monitored because of their debt and wage bill, it was seen as a significant extra burden that they allegedly wanted to avoid.
According to the book, that is the context in which a remarkable request was made to the striker. After a training session at the Ciutat Esportiva, Lewandowski was supposedly summoned to a private meeting with some of the club’s top figures, among them president Joan Laporta and other senior directors. The tone of the meeting, as described in the biography, was not confrontational but very clear. The directors are said to have explained the financial situation to Lewandowski in concrete terms and to have stressed how hitting that specific clause would immediately cost the club several million euros that they felt they simply could not spend.
One of the directors is said to have gone even further and told him directly that the club wanted him to stop scoring in the last matches of that season. For any striker, that kind of request would be shocking. For someone who has built his career on an obsession with goals, records and statistics, such as Lewandowski, it was presented as almost unimaginable. The book describes how the Polish forward looked at the director in disbelief, unable at first to process what he had just heard. In his entire professional life no coach, director or teammate had ever asked him to take his foot off the gas in front of goal.
Sporting reasons did not seem to justify such an idea. The league title was already secured for Barcelona by that stage, but for Lewandowski there was still a very clear personal objective. Having arrived in Spain as one of the most prolific strikers in the world, he wanted to prove his value by finishing as the league’s top scorer. Individual awards and statistics might be secondary to trophies, but for a striker of his profile they remain an important part of his legacy.
The book suggests that this created an internal conflict for Lewandowski. On the one hand he understood the club’s delicate financial situation and the broader project that had been explained to him when he left Bayern to join Barcelona in the summer of 2022. On the other hand, asking a forward to limit himself in front of goal goes directly against the mentality that has made him one of the best of his generation. Every chance in the penalty area is an invitation to shoot. Choosing not to score is almost against his nature.
Whatever was exactly said in that meeting, the numbers at the end of the season seem to support the general narrative. Lewandowski scored his final league goal of that campaign on 23 May against Real Valladolid. That strike brought him to 23 goals in La Liga. In the last two matchdays he did not find the net again, despite playing and continuing to be an important reference in Barcelona’s attack. The threshold for the alleged Bayern bonus clause was 25 goals. He finished on 23, two short of that limit.
Even so, Lewandowski still comfortably ended the season as the league’s top scorer. With 23 goals he finished four ahead of Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema, who stopped at 19. From a purely sporting perspective, the mission was accomplished. Barcelona won the title, Lewandowski topped the scoring charts in his debut season in Spain and Xavi could present a successful domestic campaign. From a financial point of view, if the clause described in the book is accurate, the club also achieved what it wanted by avoiding the extra 2.5 million euro payment to Bayern.
The publication of these claims has naturally raised many questions and sparked intense debate. Some fans fiercely criticise the idea that financial clauses might influence sporting behaviour to that extent, especially in a club that often speaks about values and respect for the game. Others point out that performance-related add-ons are now common in top-level transfers and that directors are constantly balancing the desire to win titles with the need to stabilise club finances.
For Lewandowski himself, the story adds another layer of complexity to his Barcelona chapter. He arrived from Bayern as a leader and a proven goal machine, carrying the responsibility to guide a young team back to the top after Lionel Messi’s departure. Being asked, even informally, to slow down in front of goal clashes directly with that sporting mission. The book suggests that, although he accepted the situation on a practical level, it was an episode he never fully understood or accepted emotionally.
All of this now returns to the spotlight in the days leading up to the match between FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao on 22 November 2025 at 16:15. The game itself is important for Barcelona’s current season, but the atmosphere around Lewandowski will also be shaped by these revelations. Every chance he gets, every shot he takes and every celebration will now be seen not only in the light of the present title race, but also through the prism of that controversial story from his first year at the club.
Whether the club will officially respond to the details reported in Lewandowski: The Real One remains to be seen. What is clear is that the image of a world-class striker being asked to stop scoring goals because of a transfer clause has captured the imagination of fans and media alike and will continue to be a talking point long after the final whistle against Athletic Bilbao.
Updated: 03:17, 20 Nov 2025
