Robert Lewandowski was battling against the odds at Barcelona.

As their disappointing 2023-24 season came to a close, senior decision-makers at the club were open to the idea of selling the veteran striker after just two seasons at Barca. He had scored 19 league goals as they finished runners-up to Real Madrid in La Liga (to add to 23 goals in his first season), but Xavi and his coaching staff believed Lewandowski, who turned 36 in August, did not have the pressing ability and off-the-ball requirements to lead the line anymore.

Six months later, Barcelona are top of La Liga, have thrashed Madrid and his old club Bayern Munich in the past month, and Lewandowski is the top scorer in Europe’s top five leagues across all competitions, with 19 goals in 17 matches.

Many things have changed at Barca during that time. Hansi Flick replaced Xavi as head coach, wonderkids from La Masia, such as Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi, have continued their impressive rises and the Catalan club has awoken as a European force. Lewandowski has been a vital part of that success, scoring more goals than games played in both La Liga and the Champions League.

Even for a player of his vast experience, the Polish striker is the first to admit there has been a steep adaptation process since he arrived as their marquee signing in the summer of 2022.

“It might be difficult to compare with other clubs, but everything gets very noisy at Barcelona,” Lewandowski tells The Athletic in an exclusive interview this week. “I have learnt in these years in the club how to stay away from this. At the start, I read and heard a lot of disinformation and in some cases, I didn’t understand why it was happening.

“But then I understood how this media world works in Barcelona and I decided to be completely out (disconnected from it). I don’t focus anymore on these things, it’s too much and not good for the long term of your career.”

It’s not been just the media landscape that has taken some getting used to for Lewandowski. The 36-year-old plays a significant role in a dressing room full of precocious talents. He is 19 years older than Yamal and Cubarsi and there is a 16-year age gap between him and Gavi, as well as a 15-year one with Alejandro Balde, Marc Casado and Fermin Lopez.

Lewandowski and Yamal celebrating during the Clasico win earlier this season (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

At a time when Barcelona needed them given the financial constraints on the club, the next generation have stepped up and made a huge impact in the first team. For older players, particularly those who did not come through the club’s academy, it’s been important to understand and embrace these rising stars.

“At the beginning of my time here, I needed to understand the new generation — their thinking and everything,” says Lewandowski, who is speaking in his role as an ambassador for the digital entertainment marketplace G2A. “I had to learn Spanish as well, but then I started talking with them about different subjects at lunch tables or moments we had together. It’s easy for me to talk about the experiences I’ve had in my career, or simply when I was a teenager.

“Youngsters are completely different now. When I was younger, when a veteran told me to do something, I would obey them directly without a single question. Now it’s different, it’s not good or bad, don’t get me wrong, it’s just different. They are fearless in every sense and not only in football. Society is like that. Youngsters are more fearless and self-confident.

“Over the last year, I feel I have clicked in a better way with them. I usually sit at lunch with several youngsters and we speak about life. I listen to their worries and they ask what I used to think at their age. In a way, we were very similar, but I saw the world from a different perspective to what they have now.”

Flick has acted as a unifying factor between those two worlds, the old and the new. Eyebrows were raised when a German manager who didn’t speak the language was appointed in the summer, but he embraced the job, improved the team and very quickly won over the doubters.

“Every individual in the club is doing better,” says Lewandowski. “We, the players, are doing great on the pitch. I also think we all feel stronger. When you have this fitness preparation we have now, you don’t need to worry about keeping the physical demands of the game and then also think about how to beat your opponent. We now know we are fine, we have the power and the legs to do what we need.”

Some players present for Flick’s first training sessions told The Athletic they were impressed by the German’s knowledge of every La Masia graduate and what they could bring to the first team. Even the youngsters were impressed by this and the confidence he instilled in them has been translated onto the pitch, as seen in the emergence of less-heralded players such as Casado and the now-injured Marc Bernal.

Lewandowski, of course, had a past with Flick. They worked together at Bayern, achieving great success together in 2020 when they won the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and the Champions League. The striker, who was named UEFA’s player of the year during his time in Munich with Flick, says the 59-year-old’s man-management has been key to Barcelona’s progress.

Flick and Lewandowski after being named coach and player of the year in Germany in 2020 (M. Donato/FC Bayern via Getty Images)

“I think the first time I spoke with him this year was in the period when Barcelona were looking for a new manager (Xavi left the club on May 24). It was a short period, about two or three weeks before the start of summer,” he says.

“When I got the information, I was very happy because I knew what was going to happen. I’ve worked a lot with Hansi and we don’t need to talk too much — we understand each other very easily and don’t need too many words. When he tries to explain something, I can understand straight away the way he wants to convince us to play. This is one of the things I like the most about him.

“Not just as a coach, he is a very direct and fair person. Even with the players who do not play, he will try to speak to you and tell you the truth. I think all the players appreciate that because if someone is fully honest with you, then you can understand their decisions better.”

The admiration is mutual. In September, after Barcelona beat Getafe 1-0 thanks to a goal from the striker, Flick didn’t hesitate in saying: “Lewandowski is, for me, the best No 9 in the last decade of football.”

“I am very glad to see that the coach supports me. But for me, at this point of my career, seeing what somebody says to the media is not that important,” Lewandowski says.

“The most important thing is what he says to me in private, in the dressing room, in meetings or every day in training sessions. There’s even sometimes he (Flick) does not say something to the media but he says it to me directly. This is key.”

Lewandowski speaking to The Athletic about life at Barcelona and excelling in the Messi-Ronaldo era (Eduard Duran for The Athletic)

The striker’s words might take you back to last season when Xavi was complimentary about Lewandowski in media duties, but that did not seem to translate into the club’s planning in May.

“I don’t refer to any moments in particular, but in my career, I have seen that, sometimes, what is going around is not totally real. The value of the words, for me, is bigger when anyone says it in private to me,” Lewandowski says.

“There are a lot of politics as well in the industry. I know too much about this business. I am not the guy who believes if someone says an opinion about anything… I prefer to listen to certain things myself to then trust them.

“This is not only for me I think. For the rest of my team-mates, too. The most important thing is what we discuss indoors, between ourselves.”

Like plenty of his team-mates, at Barcelona and his previous clubs, Lewandowski is a big fan of gaming and has been for a long time.

“As far as I remember, I loved playing games in my free time,” he says. “Even now, when free time is something very valuable, it just allows me to switch off. It is a space of time when I don’t think about anything else. I am so focused and feel in a different world.”

This feeds into what he says is a “very natural” link-up with G2A, who describe themselves as the world’s largest marketplace for digital entertainment. 

“I have been a huge fan of Formula 1 and NBA for years, so I play those games. Now I also spend a lot of time on military games. I remember when I was like 20, at Dortmund, we were playing online with the rest of our team-mates. We were like 15 different players in the same game. In that time, without family, it was probably easier,” he says with a laugh.

His number one priority in life is his family — his wife Anna, who he married in 2013, and his two daughters, Laura (aged 14) and Klara (aged 7).

“The first place goes to my family,” he says. “Whenever we have time and opportunity, we spend time doing things, talking, and being together. Children give you a different perspective, you are responsible for them and you watch them develop their interests, look for their own hobbies and pursue them.

“I love showing the world to my daughters.”

Lewandowski has scored 525 goals in 674 games during his time at Borussia Dortmund, Bayern and Barca and 84 in 156 appearances for the Poland national team. In Europe’s top five leagues, he has won 11 league titles, four domestic cups and lifted the Champions League with Bayern (as well as being runner-up with Dortmund in 2013).

It has been a far from usual path to football’s elite, too. He played for five different Polish teams between the age of 17 and 22, progressing and getting better moves each time, before securing a transfer from Lech Poznan to Dortmund in 2010. He has never looked back and can feel aggrieved not to have won the Ballon d’Or in 2020 — when the award was cancelled due to the pandemic — after a truly outstanding season at Bayern Munich.

“In a way, strikers need to be selfish sometimes,” he says when reflecting on his goalscoring. “There can be situations where the team is not finding their way and the strikers, for the position we play in, can make a difference by doing their own thing.

“I think that there are two positions in the game that require a different personality from other footballers: goalkeepers and strikers. We both can make a difference out of nothing.”

This mentality perhaps reflects the era he has lived and played in: led by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, two prolific goalscorers who motivated themselves through fierce ambition to be the best in the sport. It is hard to stand tall beside those two, but Lewandowski believes there are many reasons to feel proud of his legacy — and to know that he has gone toe-to-toe with those two greats in spells and at times even surpassed them. Only Messi and Ronaldo have more than his 99 goals in the Champions League; he could hit 100 on Tuesday against French side Brest.

“I have been playing football in the same era as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. I think I’ve been close to that elite level in some moments and even beat them in different games. I think we can say I was around!” he says.

“It means a lot if you get close to guys like this. It makes me very proud to see that in the era of Messi and Ronaldo, sometimes, Lewandowski also managed to break some records and make an impact.”

Lewandowski and Messi facing each other at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (Michael Regan – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

Sustaining greatness is the biggest challenge for the next generation, such as Yamal and Cubarsi, according to Lewandowski. Earlier this season, he described Yamal as “the best winger in the world at the moment”. It was big praise — not just from a team-mate, but from a striker who has been surrounded by some of the world’s best wide players throughout his career.

“Every young talent in the world needs to have the challenge to not just reach the top of football, but to stay there,” says Lewandowski. “And for me, nowadays, this can be even more difficult than before.

“Now you have social media, footballers with money from a young age, maybe you win some titles and you have a lot of people saying you are great… all of this can be difficult to process. If you don’t build up the mentality in the right time, later on, it can be complicated to figure out the tougher situations.”

In 2022, Lewandowski signed a three-year contract with Barcelona, extendable to a fourth season if he played more than 50 per cent of minutes in the 2024-25 campaign. Everyone at the club expects this clause to be triggered and for Lewandowski to remain Barca’s No 9 for another year.

Are there more plans in Lewandowski’s mind beyond that?

“I can’t do too many long-term plans right now. I see myself very well now,” he says. “Maybe in two or three years, I feel like I don’t want to play anymore at the top level, but in this age, you can’t know exactly what’s going on. But I feel that I am where I dreamt to be, in the right place with the right people.

“The way Barca fans have supported me, it’s been amazing. In games but also in my daily life, it’s been special.”

He is targeting the 2026 World Cup with Poland, too: “I want to be part of the qualifiers and we will see. For me, it’s special to play for my country, I can never say I’ve had enough. I feel I have this power to help them on and off the pitch.”

His contract at Barcelona has often been a subject of discussion around the club. Lewandowski is one of the top earners and last September, in a press conference, president Joan Laporta revealed the striker offered to “adequate his contract” in a way that could help Barca’s finances to register new signing Dani Olmo on time.

“I would prefer not to talk about details,” says Lewandowski when asked what exactly he proposed to the club. “For me, it is that being a part of Barcelona is not just being a player. I think I can be an important figure in the club in all departments. I like to share what I think, my opinions. I’ve had many experiences in football, management and everything around the industry, so I think my thoughts can be helpful.

“When I spoke with the president, I shared my thoughts. I am a person who is not afraid of sharing opinions. Not to attack anyone, but just discuss the best solutions for the club.

“If we get the club to a better place, that’s going to have a good impact on me, too, so that’s a win-win and the best way to live my profession.”

Barcelona are doing plenty of winning at the moment, six points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga (albeit their rivals have a game in hand) and in line to qualify automatically for the Champions League round of 16.

Lewandowski, at the ripe old age of 36, is playing a starring role.

(Additional contributor: Mark Carey)

(Top photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)

A civil jury in Ireland ruled that Conor McGregor sexually assaulted a woman in a penthouse after a night of partying in 2018.

The woman who claimed the UFC fighter “brutally raped and battered” her in a Dublin hotel penthouse was awarded nearly 250,000 Euros ($257,000) on Friday.

The woman had to take several breaks in her emotional testimony as she said that McGregor had threatened to kill her during the encounter. The defense said the woman had never told investigators that McGregor had threatened her life.

A paramedic who examined the woman the next day testified that she hadn’t seen someone with that intensity of bruising.

McGregor put her in a chokehold several times and later told her, “Now you know how I felt in the octagon where I tapped out three times,” referring to an Ultimate Fighting Championship when he had to admit defeat, she said.

She feared she would die and never see her daughter again.

“He let me go, and I remember saying I was sorry, as I felt that I did something wrong, and I wanted to reassure him that I wouldn’t tell anyone so he wouldn’t hurt me again,” she said.

She said she then let him do what he wanted, and he had sex with her.

Conor McGregor attends the “Road House” New York premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center on March 19, 2024, in New York City. (Manoli Figetakis/WireImage)

UFC PRESIDENT DANA WHITE DONE WITH POLITICS FOR GOOD AFTER TRUMP VICTORY: ‘IT’S DISGUSTING’

McGregor said the two had sex that was athletic and vigorous, but not rough. He said “she never said ‘No’ or stopped” and testified that everything she said was a lie.

“It is a full-blown lie among many lies,” he said when asked about the chokehold allegation. “How anyone could believe that me, as a prideful person, would highlight my shortcomings.”

They also showed surveillance video in court that they said appeared to show the woman kiss McGregor’s arm and hug him after they left the hotel room. Farrell said she looked “happy, happy, happy.”

McGregor previously was accused of sexually assaulting someone in a bathroom at an NBA Finals game in 2022, but he avoided charges.

Conor McGregor of Ireland prepares to fight Dustin Poirier during the UFC 264 event at T-Mobile Arena on July 10, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada.  (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

McGregor, who hasn’t fought since 2021, was set to return to the ring at UFC 303, but his injury kept him away from the Octagon.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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When Lindsay Gottlieb thinks back to the start, before USC was about to become the biggest thing in women’s college basketball — and maybe college basketball overall — her mind travels to a phone call 3½ years ago. She had just taken the job at USC, inheriting a once-elite program that hadn’t been relevant in a quarter-century. Gottlieb and her family were in New York, visiting the Central Park Zoo, when her cellphone rang. On the other line was Jazzy Davidson, a budding 14-year-old star in the class of 2025.

“I really connected with her,” Gottlieb recalled. But then the uncertainty set in. USC hadn’t competed for players like her in years. “I just remember hanging up and thinking, ‘Huh, well, I hope we even get a shot at this kid. I hope she doesn’t just go to Stanford.’”

But in the time it took Davidson to choose her college destination, Gottlieb built USC into a bona fide super team with not just Final Four aspirations, but expectations, led by one of the biggest stars women’s college basketball has ever seen in JuJu Watkins. When Davidson, now the No. 2 prospect in her class, signed with USC last week, the basketball world nodded along expectedly, but Gottlieb took a second to think of that first phone call.

“That was a moment,” she said, “where it was like, ‘Wow, we really got that kid. We built something worthy of the best players in the country saying, ‘This is the right fit for me.’”

A tidal wave of talent has poured into the program ever since its Elite Eight run last season. Not just the No. 1 high school recruiting class, but the top transfer haul, too, with a star in Stanford transfer Kiki Iriafen who’s expected to be a top three pick in the WNBA draft in April.

The sudden gravitational pull toward Troy starts with Watkins, a sophomore who has already surpassed 1,000 career points and enters this season operating in a different stratosphere of stardom than any player who came before her outside of former Iowa star Caitlin Clark. A-list athletes have already flocked to see Watkins and snap photos with her. Brands including Gatorade and Nike have already inked name, image and likeness endorsement deals with her. And on Saturday, just before No. 3 USC faces off with No. 5 Notre Dame in a marquee matchup on NBC, the network will debut the first episode of “On the Rise,” a docuseries following — and produced by — Watkins.

That dynamic is certainly different from anything Gottlieb has dealt with before.

“This is a new year for me, for a number of reasons,” Gottlieb said. “I’m trying to figure out how to embrace the talent we have and the expectations that we have and doing right by this group. That’s what I would do every year, no matter what the circumstance was. But things that are coming at me are different than they were even six months ago.”

The Times spoke with Gottlieb, a former NBA assistant coach who recently earned her 300th head coaching win, about the changes at USC and within college basketball and the expectations that come with them. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

USC guard JuJu Watkins shoots over a Cal State Northridge double-team during a blowout win at the Galen Center on Nov. 12.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Last year was obviously such an important, unique moment for women’s basketball.Caitlin Clark is in the WNBA now. What do you feel like that next step is, especially at the college level?

I think it just continues to move forward. I don’t know if there will be a singular moment in the way that the Caitlin effect or Caitlin and Angel Reese — that definitely brought a lot of people to the table. But I think now it continues to evolve around things that are really just a part of our sport. Incredible players. Great stories. And then — this comparison has been made before — but the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird thing was just so big and new, and then, it was, well, wait a second, here comes Michael Jordan. The game kind of took off in a different way. So I don’t think we’ll turn back in terms of the attention, but I think now it will continue on a trajectory going forward. There are more people covering women’s college basketball this year. There are more people out there. So the stories are here and have been here, and it continues to grow. We’re fortunate that the college game is shifting from Caitlin and does have JuJu, does have [Connecticut star] Paige [Bueckers], does have [Notre Dame’s] Hannah [Hidalgo]. There’s other big stars that are ready to take that on. But really, the game has always had stars.

As we’ve seen since, there are some pitfalls of ascending to that next level of popularity as a sport …

I mean, look at the WNBA. Half the coaches were fired. I mean, look at the toxicity on social media. When you jump to another level, it’s a little bit like, ‘Careful what you wished for here.’ Now there are people covering women’s basketball for the right reasons, and there are people covering it for clicks. There’s more trolls on social media. And I know one of the responses is, well, look at the NBA. That’s always been there. And I think in women’s basketball, we can say, ‘Yeah, but it’s OK to put it off. It’s OK to not accept that that’s where we go.’ There was so much racist and misogynistic language around it this year, and no one wants that. You want coverage, and controversy is OK, and you want debate. Morning talk shows, I’m great with all of that. But one of the downfalls certainly has been how divisive some of the language is. And that obviously coincides with certainly where the country is. That would be one thing. Then I would say, like, more eyes on it, if we are being more like pro sports, then in the WNBA, hard things happen when people think there’s money to be made. People I know and like and care about get fired. More turnover, that’s just going to be part of it, too.

USC forward Kiki Iriafen drives to the basket under pressure from Mississippi’s Madison Scott, left, and Tameiya Sadler in the season opener played in Paris on Nov. 4.

(Aurelien Morissard/Associated Press)

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Coaching a player like JuJu, who is going to be in that limelight a lot this season, how do you balance your instincts to protect her from those negative forces, while also letting her spread her wings and fly, so to speak, as the marketable star athlete she is?

I would say my instinct with JuJu is to do as much as I can to allow her, No. 1, to be happy and fulfilled as a young person and to be as successful as possible. It looks different all the time. Of course, with all the players, I have a kind of maternal protection instinct, and I have an instinct — I want to get out of her way and let her be the artist, creative basketball player she is. Let’s do what we can to put guardrails in place, where her greatness and her popularity can soar, but making sure we always have her safety in mind. The administration has really helped me with that as well. You don’t know what you don’t know, but now that we have somewhat of a blueprint — we’ve really talked to Iowa a number of times about things that they experienced and what we can look to. We’ve tried to be proactive. But as a basketball player, like, my human connection with JuJu comes first. Because I think she’ll be at her best when she knows and believes she can trust me. We’re always on the same page with what the team goals are and what she’s facing. I just try and show up for her in that way. Like I said, get out of the way, and let her be great. But also be there as someone who makes her better and helps her when she needs it.

Is there anything in particular you learned from Iowa when you spoke with them about their experience with Caitlin Clark?

A couple things. Our administration has talked to them just about how they handled everything from autographs and security to game day things. I’ve talked to [former Iowa coach] Lisa Bluder about, like, ‘What was it like coaching with all the eyes and all the attention Caitlin and the team was facing?’ I talked to Caitlin herself this summer, like, ‘Help me. What do I do to make JuJu’s experience the best?’ We’ve tried our best to reach out. And I’ve tapped into my NBA experiences and people I know to understand the mindset when your life is a little different, in the way JuJu’s is now.

USC guard JuJu Watkins is surrounded by fans as she signs autographs after the Trojans beat Cal State Northridge on Nov. 12 at the Galen Center.

(Ryan Sun / Associated Press)

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This team has a stockpile of talent. But, obviously, there are other intangible factors at play for a program to go from good to great. What do you feel like is the biggest challenge for this team in making that leap?

I think handling expectations and handling, you know, individual goals at the same time as the team goals. It’s a good challenge to have. I am utterly certain and very confident that this team wants to win. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to win. We don’t want people to sign up to just be the one. That’s just the way we’ve constructed the roster. To me, that’s a constant challenge, just to make sure I’m pushing all the right buttons. But every coach has challenges and that’s a good one to have. I wouldn’t shy away from it. Then, just the expectations. None of us have been in this situation before. Kiki has come from an incredible program. [Point guard Talia von Oelhoffen] comes from an incredible program. We had a lot of success last year. But no one has been preseason whatever we are, with the expectations. So we’re just trying to be ready and get better every day and give ourselves a chance to do what we’re capable of doing.

Now, in your fourth season, it seems like you’re working a completely different job. Where do you feel like your job has changed the most?

We don’t have enough time [laughs]. I mean, it’s so different. Even from mid-last year. But really from when last year ended, the conversations with TV stations, with people promoting games, with administration on getting ready for this year, with hiring a GM and NIL stuff, with, I mean, even the on-court stuff of managing expectations, none of it is completely like anything I’ve experienced before. But at the nuts and bolts, it’s still humanity. It’s still Xs and O’s and finding the right schemes. It’s still getting to their soul and what’s going to make them the best player. It’s challenging them and building them up. The coaching stays the same. But all of the other stuff that happens on a daily basis is, like, pretty different.