Robert Lewandowski needs to step it up to save Poland's Euro 2020 hopes

Robert Lewandowski didn’t get his first real sight of goal in Poland’s opening Euro 2020 game against Slovakia until the closing stages of the 2-1 defeat.

The Bayern Munich striker, who should have won the 2020 Ballon d’Or that never was and who scored 48 goals in 40 appearances at club level during the 2020/21 season, saw the ball flash across the face of goal in front of him, only to fail to make a clean connection with his head.

It means that Lewandowski’s tally of goals at major international tournaments remains just two. Yet this is now the fourth such competition of his career, having scored once each at Euro 2012 and Euro 2016 and drawn a blank at the World Cup in 2018.

For a player considered one of the best strikers of his generation, that return is extremely poor.

Slovakia were good value for their victory. They outplayed Poland in the first half and Lewandowski’s threat was non-existent. An early Polish goal from Karol Linetty after the interval changed the game, but that ascendancy only lasted until Grzegorz Krychowiak was sent off for two yellow cards.

Yet even when Poland did briefly have the upper hand for those 15 minutes, Lewandowski was still alarmingly quiet for someone of his quality.

He has scored 66 goals in his Poland career to date, including 22 in his last two qualifying campaigns alone, and is already the country’s all-time leading goalscorer by some distance. What’s more, goals have come against sides at least as reputable as Slovakia.

It makes the almost total lack of goals when it comes to the actual tournaments quite bizarre.

What is clear is that he doesn’t have the same quality of support cast with Poland as he does at Bayern. But there has to be more from a world class striker at an international tournament.

It does work both ways, though, and his supporting cast, who were largely poor against Slovakia, can also shoulder some blame and need to step it up as well if Poland are to avoid a disappointing group stage exit for a second consecutive tournament.

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