The Making of a Goal Machine

Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski is the most complete, most ruthless, most polished striker of his generation. But what we see is only the finished product.

Robert Lewandowski does not characterize it as thought. Not conscious thought, anyway. In those moments when he has the ball at his feet and the goal in his sights, even after all these years, even when he can lay claim to being the most complete, most ruthless, most polished striker of his generation, he is not thinking. Or more to the point: He is not aware of himself thinking. He is not weighing options, rifling through possibilities, selecting the best of them. Thinking takes time, and there is no time. “There is not even half a second to think about what to do or how to do it,” he said. And yet he is thinking. Or more to the point: He is learning. He is absorbing information, analyzing it, filing it away.