Robert Lewandowski's Future: MLS or Serie A?
Robert Lewandowski stood on the pitch as a La Liga champion again, but the real noise around him on Sunday was not about another medal. It was about what comes next.
The 37-year-old played the final 13 minutes of Barcelona’s 2–0 win over Real Madrid, a result that sealed a third league title in four seasons for the Catalan club. As his teammates celebrated, Lewandowski quietly dropped the clearest hint yet that his time at the Camp Nou is nearing its end – and that the next chapter could be far from Europe’s elite.
Speaking to Polish broadcaster Eleven Sports after the game, the striker laid out his crossroads with typical bluntness.
“There might be an option to go to an inferior league,” he said, in comments relayed via SPORT, a line that immediately set MLS alarm bells ringing. “I’m almost 38, but I feel good physically, so I’m considering it. I have to consider the possibility that it might be time to play more freely and enjoy life. Maybe that option arises, and I’m not ruling it out.
“What will I do come the fall? I don’t know. I just found out that I have 51 days left on my contract, so I still have time. I’ll listen to a few more offers and then make a decision.”
Those 51 days now feel like the countdown clock for one of this era’s defining No. 9s.
Chicago Fire step into the spotlight
If Lewandowski did mean MLS when he spoke about an “inferior league”, Chicago Fire are already in position.
Only days before the Pole’s comments, Chicago’s sporting director Gregg Broughton went on talkSPORT and did what executives usually avoid: he openly confirmed the club’s interest.
“Robert [Lewandowski] is a player that the MLS as a league is interested in,” Broughton said. “Don’t forget that the players within the MLS, and this is something unique about the league, is the players are owned by the league rather than the clubs themselves.
“So, we’ve put our interest forward in terms of trying to bring a player of that caliber to Chicago Fire. Again, Robert is still a Barcelona player and it wouldn’t be the right thing for me to do to talk about a player who’s under contract at another club.”
The message was clear enough. MLS wants Lewandowski. Chicago are prepared to front the project. Reports have already suggested the Fire are readying a salary that would place him among the highest earners in the league’s history.
They are not alone in the chase. AC Milan and other Serie A clubs have been linked with the forward, who will turn 38 later this year but continues to operate at a level that tempts any side looking for guaranteed goals and global profile.
Barcelona, for their part, are not pushing him out of the door. The club would like to keep him, but on their terms: a reduced salary and a smaller role. For a player who has built a career on leading the line and setting standards, that is a compromise he has so far been unwilling to accept.
The result is a rare situation. One of the game’s most ruthless finishers is effectively on the open market, with Europe’s traditional powers and a growing MLS all circling at once.
No farewell, no retirement tour
What Lewandowski did shut down was any notion that this title might be his last act.
In Poland, the debate had taken a playful twist when fellow international Wojciech Szczęsny joked that Lewandowski should retire first and then weigh his options – a nod to Szczęsny’s own brief retirement before signing for Barcelona as a free agent in September 2024.
Lewandowski smiled that idea away.
“You know how Wojciech [Szczęsny] is,” he told Eleven Sports. “It’s not like I wake up and something hurts. I appreciate where I am, and I’m enjoying it. We’ll see what comes next, but what’s clear is that I’m going to continue playing.”
No farewell tour. No testimonial mindset. He still feels sharp, still wants the ball in the box, still wants the responsibility.
So the question is no longer whether Robert Lewandowski will play next season. It is where. A scaled-back role at Barcelona, a final tilt at Serie A with a club like Milan, or a move to MLS where Chicago Fire and an entire league are waiting to build around his name.
The clock on that 51-day contract is ticking, and every day it gets louder.
