CHICAGO \u2014 Robert Lewandowski is looking forward to providing a big lift to the Chicago Fire as he is set to join Major League Soccer.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old, who signed a two-year contract with the Fire, knew he didn\u2019t want to stay in Europe when his contract expired with Barcelona in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine myself with a different club besides Barcelona, so that\u2019s why we knew that the next step would be outside of Europe and of course, that it\u2019s not easy to move from Europe to USA, but we are very excited,\u201d Lewandowski said on Tuesday at an introductory news conference at the club\u2019s training facility. \u201cBut of course, our lives are changing, but it\u2019s a new experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewandowski scored 119 goals in 192 appearances for Barcelona. He helped Barcelona win three La Liga championships in four seasons, including this year, and one title at Copa del Rey, Spain\u2019s national tournament. <\/p>\n
Lewandowski also has played a record 167 international games for Poland, beginning with a goal in his debut against San Marino in 2008, when he was 20. Lewandowski is Poland\u2019s all-time leading scorer with 89 goals.<\/p>\n
Lewandowski is a designated player, one of three roster spots that MLS teams carry that can exceed the salary cap. The Fire are scheduled to open McDonald\u2019s Park, a soccer-specific stadium, in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the potential to win titles with the new club,\u201d Lewandowski said. \u201cI\u2019m very happy because it\u2019s the new step in my career, the new step in my life. Now, we\u2019re in a good position, but of course, we have to start working hard, and I also hope that we can enjoy after this season, a lot of what we achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding a player with the resume of Lewandowski was a no-brainer for Fire coach Gregg Berhalter. <\/p>\n
The team is in third place in the Eastern Conference as the league prepares to resume after its World Cup break this week. The Fire host the Vancouver Whitecaps on Thursday night, and Lewandowski could make his club debut then.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a massive signing for our football club,\u201d Berhalter said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to bring Robert to the club. We\u2019re excited to see how he can change the culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good team right now, I think Robert is a piece that can help take us to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewandowski is expected to form a strike partnership with Hugo Cuypers, who is the league\u2019s leading scorer with 13 goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not too common to play with two strikers nowadays, but we\u2019ve been working hard on what that looks like around the penalty box, what combinations look like, how to affect the back line with two strikers and we have some really good data points,\u201d Berhalter said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been scoring goals lately, we\u2019ve been really picking apart the back line and we don\u2019t see any reason why that can\u2019t continue with Hugo and Robert on the field together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Robert Lewandowski is looking forward to providing a big lift to the Chicago Fire as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,1329,1743,5534],"class_list":["post-55273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-chicago-fire","tag-soccer","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}