Robert Lewandowski reveals why Man Utd transfer fell through | OneFootball

Robert Lewandowski has revealed that he had "decided" to join Manchester United when Sir Alex Ferguson was still at the club, meaning his career could have unfolded very differently.

The Pole has scored almost 700 career goals for club and country since he first turned out for Delta Warsaw in the fourth tier of Polish football as a 16-year-old.

The opportunity to move to Old Trafford came after he had started to make his name with Borussia Dortmund, some time after a proposed move to Blackburn Rovers had fallen through because of an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland grounding flights across northern Europe.

"I had decided to go to Manchester United. I remember when I was speaking with Sir Alex Ferguson and I was already decided," Lewandowski told The Sun.

"I was 22, 23 [years old] and it was after one or two years in Dortmund [when Sir Alex called me]. You cannot say no [to him], it's the prime of Manchester United, the prime of Sir Alex Ferguson. I was decided, okay, I want to join to Manchester United," he added, placing it around 2011 or 2012.

Sir Alex Ferguson saw the potential in a developing Lewandowski / ODD ANDERSEN/GettyImages

Under Jurgen Klopp, Dortmund won the Bundesliga in each of Lewandowski's first two seasons in Germany, with the Pole scoring 30 times in all competitions during the 2011/12 campaign alone.

"But in the end Dortmund said no. So I had to respect this," he conceded.

In 2012, United did do business with Dortmund, but only for Japanese playmaker Shinji Kagawa. They also eventually spent big on a striker by signing Robin van Persie from Premier League rivals Arsenal, giving the squad the firepower it needed to wrestle the title back from Manchester City.

Lewandowski wound up staying with Dortmund and helped the club reach the Champions League in 2013. But he lasted just one more year at Signal Iduna Park, joining Bayern Munich on a free transfer in the summer of 2014 after running down his contract.