Xavi responds to Lewandowski criticism: “he is absolutely right”
Despite Robert Lewandowski’s brilliant individual performance, Barcelona was eliminated from the Champions League group stage and Lewandowski was not happy.
After dropping to the Europa League for the second consecutive season, Barcelona player Robert Lewandowski admitted that he’s not happy. Even knowing that Barcelona is in the middle of a rebuild, it’s still disappointing to be eliminated early from the Champions League.
“Obviously I’m not happy, Barcelona should be in the last 16. Before coming to Barcelona I was already aware that the first season could be harder than it should be,” said Lewandowski. “We are in a process of reconstruction that needs time, we have to be more patient.”
Lewandowski has scored 18 goals in 17 games in all competitions since coming to Barcelona. But his individual performance has not been enough to keep them in the Champions League, which they were eliminated from last week when Inter Milan beat Viktoria Plzen, which was followed by a disheartening Barcelona 3-0 loss to Bayern Munich.
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Lewandowski, who will not play against Victoria Pilsen in today’s Champions League game, spoke in an interview on Monday, and said some things that seemed like an attack on coach Xavi Hernández.
“In football, sometimes it’s necessary, you have to learn how to win, and not how to play to win,” said Lewandowski.
What did Xavi say about Lewandowski’s criticism?
In short, Xavi agrees with Lewandowski and did not take it as a personal attack.
“He knows how to compete and he’s absolutely right,” said Xavi. “You have to know how to compete, but it has nothing to do with the idea of the game. It’s not about the style or the idea. It’s about knowing how to compete at certain times.”
“We lack that maturity and packaging as a team. We have a lot of youth and we’ve had the worst Champions League group in years, we’ve seen questionable refereeing decisions, we have had many injuries… which are not excuses but have hurt us. But above all, we have not controlled these situations, perhaps at the most stressful moment of the competition to compete. I think that’s what Lewandowski is referring to.”