The post-Lionel Messi era at Barcelona has carried a strange, almost surreal atmosphere, the kind that lingers when a dynasty ends and the lights come back on. Messi’s departure in 2021 collided with a fiscal collapse that the club still feels today, and Robert Lewandowski—arriving from Bayern Munich a year later—walked straight into that reality. The striker’s new biography places those early days into sharper focus, and his recollections weave together a portrait of a club still standing but unquestionably altered. Barcelona is spoken of in the singular throughout the passages, and Messi’s shadow remains present, just as Lewandowski’s arrival symbolizes the new world the team had entered.
The Argentine’s emotional exit, confirmed by Joan Laporta in 2021, marked a soccer rupture: a superstar pushed out not by sporting decline, but by finances. That set the tone for everything that followed. When Lewandowski later joined from Bayern, he landed in a club that still felt the aftershocks of that moment, both on the pitch and in the smallest corners of the sporting complex.
Barcelona’s crisis was not a secret, but the depth of it only made sense when Messi left. Years of debt collided with La Liga’s salary cap restrictions, and even Messi’s willingness to take a large pay cut could not save his contract. His tearful farewell still echoes through that first paragraph of any story about the club’s modern identity.
“It is impossible for us to keep Messi due to La Liga regulations and our economic situation,” Laporta admitted at the time. That single sentence cracked open a truth: the club could no longer behave like the Barca that the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner had helped build. As Messi left for PSG, the Catalans reshaped themselves with necessity as the driving force. Budget constraints touched every corner of the institution. This, as Lewandowski’s biography now confirms, went well beyond transfers and salaries.
Lionel Messi attends his press conference about his departure from FC Barcelona
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Lewandowski’s biography reveals stunning financial details
The biography named ‘Real One’ and interviews with writer Sebastian Staszewski reveal a moment that perfectly captures the club’s offbeat new circumstances. Lewandowski’s first training camp with Barcelona took place in Florida in 2022. During his first lunch in the club dining hall, he noticed something uncanny: there were no certain types of meat or fish on the menu. When he asked about it, he was told the club was trying to save money. The detail is real, and it is bizarre. For a global giant to cut corners this way hints at how deep the financial crisis ran.
In the autobiography’s supporting interviews, Staszewski explains that this was not drama, just honest surprise. “He was very surprised that there were no certain types of meat and fish. He asked a question and was told that they needed to save money… He wasn’t upset, just surprised,” Staszewski said. The writer even noted the veteran’s reputation: a player so meticulous with his diet that he can detect poor-quality ingredients in something as simple as soup.
There is an added twist: Barcelona later restored these dishes. Staszewski explained that Lewandowski did not demand anything aggressively; he simply inquired. “It wasn’t a problem… It’s a funny story that shows what problems Barca had… Now, as far as I know, there are more types of meat and fish available, and there are no more problems,” he added.
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