WARSAW – Soccer player Robert Lewandowski received an honour from the Polish president on Monday, giving the striker named Best FIFA Men's Player in 2020 another award for a trophy cabinet already containing Champions League and Bundesliga winner's medals.
Lewandowski, who last season won the German league and cup double plus the Champions League with Bayern Munich, received the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from his country's President Andrzej Duda.
The honour is conferred on military personnel and civilians for outstanding achievements in their fields. Lewandowski joins the first democratically elected president of Poland Lech Walesa and American President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a recipient.
"No matter how many trophies I have already won... right now my ambition is high and I don't want to rest on my success," Lewandowski said, after accepting the award. The 32-year-old led Poland to Euro 2020 qualification and was also named the 2019-20 UEFA Men's Player of the Year.
Last week Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ask that Lewandowski and a Poland team mate be exempt from quarantine rules when re-entering Germany after a World Cup qualifier against England scheduled for March 31 at Wembley Stadium.
Lewandowski and Hertha Berlin's Krzysztof Piatek play for German clubs, who could have stopped them going to England for the match as that may have meant they would miss games with the Bundesliga teams when they returned due to quarantine rules.
The Polish Football Association later confirmed that both players will be allowed to go to England.
Reuters