Barcelona striker, Robert Lewandowski, has expressed his feelings about quitting the Poland national team, saying he was left ‘betrayed and very hurt’ by his country’s head coach, Michal Probierz, over a dispute sparked after losing the captaincy.
Lewandowski was slammed Probierz over how the situation was handled in an interview with the Polish website WP SportoweFakty on Monday, though the 36-year-old stated his hope of still playing for the national team in the future.
“I haven’t been captain for a year or two. I’ve been wearing the armband for 11 years, and I’ve been playing for the national team for 17. It seemed to me that such matters should be handled differently,” Lewandowski said in the interview.
The Barcelona striker added, “Everything was communicated over the phone. It really shouldn’t be like this. The coach betrayed my trust. I’m very hurt by what happened. It’s not even about the decision regarding the armband, but about the way it was communicated to me.”
Meanwhile, Probierz said Lewandowski had told him the captain’s armband means nothing to him during an initial call with the striker on Sunday night from Finland, where Poland play on Tuesday, about his decision to hand Zielinski the captain’s armband.
“Robert replied that the armband means nothing and it won’t change anything in the team,” Probierz said. “He told me to make it sound like he had given up the armband. I replied that I wouldn’t do that. Later, I learned from the media that Robert had given up playing for the national team.”
The Poland boss added, ”No one is closing the door on him, but I wish him luck … There are situations in life when you get offended and then you move on. In football, you can’t get offended.”