Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski admitted on Friday that the “reckless” missile that killed two people has shocked the Poland national team, who are in Qatar for the World Cup finals.
A rocket crashed on Tuesday in the Polish village of Przevodov, 6km from the Ukrainian border, killing two people.
NATO and Warsaw said the missile, which raised fears of an escalation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was fired from Ukraine’s air defense in an attempt to intercept Russian attacks.
The Polish national team left the capital, Warsaw, on Thursday for Qatar, escorted by F-16 fighter jets in the country’s airspace.
🇵🇱#Poland
⚽ Two Polish Air Force F-16 fighters escorted the plane with the national team to the #FIFA World Cup inside #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/EmGKg40xNK— 🛰️ War in Ukraine 🍉 (@EUFreeCitizen) November 18, 2022
Lewandowski and his companions were in Warsaw to prepare for Wednesday’s friendly win against Chile 1-0 when the missile landed and “it wasn’t an easy moment. Everyone was waiting for explanations, waiting for information”, according to reports from the striker of the Barcelona said on Friday from Doha.
“Unfortunately, (the missile) has injured people and caused deaths. It is certainly a very difficult situation,” he added.
Lewandowski acknowledged fears had eased after indications surfaced that the missile was not a direct attack by Russia on Poland, which supports neighboring Ukraine in repelling a Russian invasion.
“As the situation became clearer, we became a little calmer… At the same time, we had to refocus on what we were doing,” added the 34-year-old, hoping “(the incident) doesn’t would repeat.”
Poland will play its first World Cup match against Mexico on Tuesday at the ‘974 Stadium’, in Group C, which includes Argentina and Saudi Arabia.
Poland are relying mainly on Lewandowski, who has scored 76 goals in 134 international appearances, making their opponents’ defense personally focus on him, but the Barcelona forward believes this may be in the team’s best interest.
The Pole, who has scored 18 goals in 19 games this season for his new team, Barcelona, said in this regard: “I’m ready for the opponents to focus on me. The defenders will attack me during the match and to the other players (in Poland) I will take advantage of the fact that I will drag players (from the opposing team) with me” to get more penetration space.
“This could also be our strong point, being able to exploit those spaces on the pitch left by the competitors who bet on me”.
The former Bayern Munich top scorer is in the world finals for the second time in his career, and the 34-year-old refused to speculate whether Qatar 2022 would be his last final, saying with some irony: “We haven’t started the Cup yet of the World and you want me to speak of its end from now on”.
“I don’t know if it will be the last World Cup, but I’m preparing as if it were the last,” he stressed.
Lewandowski failed to score in any of the three games Poland played in the group stage in 2018, but that won’t make him obsessed with breaking the spell because “if we, as a team, create more chances to score, then me and the other strikers will have more chances to score.” The identity of the goalscorer doesn’t matter, what matters is the victory of the team.”
