Robert Lewandowski is a mesmerising goal scorer, but it turns out that’s not his only talent.
The Barcelona striker is actually very good at impressions – well, ones of his former manager Pep Guardiola, anyway.
Lewandowski joined former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand on the latter’s YouTube channel this week.
But as well as discussing Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the former Bayern Munich star inevitably spoke about serial trophy winner Guardiola, who managed him at the German club between 2014 and 2016.
And Lewandowski ended up revealing a hilarious anecdote about him in the process – as well as doing a brilliant impression.
He said: “I remember all week we prepared that we’re going to play like this, pressing we do it like this.
“We’re in stadium for the game, we go for our warm up and then we came back to the locker room after the warm up and he came to us.”
Lewandowski then jumped into character, lifting his arms in the air dramatically and pretending to be Guardiola.
“Boys, boys, boys!” he said, putting his best Pep voice on. “Sit, sit, sit! Boys, boys, boys! Listen, listen, listen.”
At this point, Ferdinand threw his head back and laughed.
“[We said] What’s going on?!” he said in his own voice. “You know, we are here, we are listening!”
Activating Guardiola mode again, Lewandowski said: “Forget everything that we did [for] the last week! We’re playing like this.”
The Polish star then started pretending to chaotically arrange a tactics board.
“And he showed us how [we were going to play],” he said. “For us, it was so easy to change the tactics.
“Not even [just] before the game, but during the game. That was easy, no problem. We changed.”
Ferdinand then went on to discuss how every former and current Guardiola player was taught how to understand every aspect of the team’s system by the Spaniard.
“You trust him,” Lewandowski agreed. “If he prepared some kind of tactic, you take it.
“Even if at first you think, ‘it’s crazy’, but after a few weeks you don’t think about it.
“You know you can trust him and you take this because in the end it’s going to be exactly how he wants.”
Guardiola and Lewandowski won two Bundesliga titles together – first in 2015 and then in 2016 – as well as one German Cup.
But despite believing in Guardiola throughout their glittering time together at Bayern, Lewandowski admits there were times he went against his manager’s commands.
“In my position [as a striker], yeah!” he smiled. “I have to say, I’ve tried to listen to a lot of people. I can take advice from someone if it’s good.
“But in the end, I have to find the best solution. No one can tell me because okay, the advice may be good. But during the game you have so many situations, you don’t have time to think, ‘oh he gave me that advice’.
“You have to feel it, to know from your brain. So in the end I tried to find a solution [that was] the best for me and for the team in the end.
“I know if I give my best I can not only help myself, but my team. My goals help my teammates.
“This connection is so important and sometimes I had to think about what I should do, the decision that is best for the team, but also for me.”
Earlier this week, talkSPORT reported Guardiola has agreed a new Man City contract.
Lewandowski, meanwhile, still has ties to his old boss as he’s playing at Guardiola’s former club Barcelona.
Despite being 36 years old, he’s still banging in goals in LaLiga and the Champions League.
He’s bagged a whopping 19 goals in 17 appearances in all competitions this season and is currently the Spanish top flight’s top goal scorer for this campaign with 14.
But his career path could have been very different if he had become Ferdinand’s Man United teammate in 2012.
