If Robert Lewandowski had joined Blackburn back in 2010 then he would be a Ballon d’Or winner by now.
That’s the verdict, at least, of his current Barcelona team-mate Ilkay Gundogan.
Lewandowski has broken multiple scoring records in a career at the highest level playing for the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and now Barca.
But his career could have had a completely different trajectory had fate not got in the way of the Poland international heading to England early on his career.
The story is quite famous, but for those unfamiliar this is how it goes.
Back when he was 22 and playing for Lech Poznan, Lewandowski was due to head to Lancashire to hold talks with then Blackburn boss Sam Allardyce about a move to the club.
But, according to Allardyce, his flight was cancelled because of a volcanic ash cloud and instead he moved to Dortmund.
Now, in a Q&A for the Champions League’s UCL show, Lewandowski and Gundogan – who were also team-mates at Borussia Dortmund – revisited that moment.
Lewandowski asked: “Which team was I meant to move to before I came to Germany?”
Former Manchester City captain Gundogan said: “I read it somewhere once, was it to Italy?”
Lewandowski replied: “No, it wasn’t Italy. I wanted to see Blackburn Rovers at the time.”
To which, Gundogan said: “Perhaps if you’d moved to Blackburn, you’d have won the Ballon d’Or by now.”
Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland with 81 goals and has hit an incredible 579 goals in 802 games at club level.
Things didn’t turn out too badly for him in the end…
