Robert Lewandowski is arguably the best striker in the world. He has scored a whopping 39 goals so far this season which begs the question. Why Bayern Munich's star striker should be benched in the most significant match of this season?
Lewandowski is no doubt a great forward. He is excellent with the ball at his feet and consistently falling back to receive passers and dishes out some of his own. He also holds up play for his teammates to pretty well. However, the problem begins when the role of finishing is isolated. Lewandowski is not your traditional number nine as many ppl seem to think he his. Conventional number nines are more akin to Mario Gomez, Mario Mandzukic and teammate Sandro Wagner.
Lewandowski's headers are not bad, but they tend to be either weak or off target. He does not always dive into headers at angles that are difficult, unlike other strikers who will happily eat grass if that means scoring a goal. Lewandowski tends to miss sitters in the matches that are the most crucial. Furthermore, this season, Lewandowski does not even reach the top 10 charts for Champions League goals this season but is ranked fourth in the “shots per game” department with a total of 4.3 on average. Not to mention the rumours surrounding him over his potential transfer to Real Madrid and perceived disinterest during training, we can begin to see why Lewandowski should be benched in the second leg.
Sandro Wagner
It might sound like a ridiculous idea of starting Sandro Wagner as a striker in a massive Champions League semi, second leg, against Real Madrid, but there are reasons for it. Lewandowski is superior to Wagner; he has only played in the Champion's League with Werder Bremen in 2010 and Hoffenheim in 2017 before coming to Bayern. However, he is one of those traditional strikers that does not need many chances to convert and uses whatever body parts required; he finds a way to make the ball go in. Furthermore, he is excellent on headers, scoring four this season and has a shot accuracy at 71% in the Bundesliga this season (54% for Lewandowski). His displays of classic striker abilities hark back to the year Bayern won the treble with Mario Gomez and Mandzukic leading the front line.
Lewandowski is a great player, but he plays excellent only when his teammates are also firing on all cylinders. In a Champion's League do or die match against Real Madrid, across to the big man Wagner who converts that one chance from a short range may be all Bayern needs to progress to the finals. It is doubtful that Jupp Heynckes will gamble on this, but it will be interesting if he does so.
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