Robert Lewandowski makes retirement admission | OneFootball

Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski has effectively ruled out playing beyond the age of 40, admitting he is well aware that his career will be over "soon".

Lewandowski turned 36 at the start of this season. But while he is very much on course for his most prolific campaign since leaving Bayern Munich in 2022, the Pole is realistic about the future.

"At my age now, I know that soon – two, three years, I don't know exactly – it will be done, it will be finished," the veteran star explained to Forbes.

Lewandowski, who has a contract until 2026 that can be extended up to 2027, has also revealed what will make him start to think about retiring when it eventually does come.

"I want to say, and only me, not anyone else, when the finish will be," he said. "When I wake up one day and feel I don't want to go to the training session, that will be the first moment to start thinking about retiring."

Lewandowski will be 37 at the start of next season / Alex Caparros/GettyImages

For now, at least, Lewandowski is in great shape and plans to carry on as long as that is the case.

"Every morning when I'm waking up – and I hope it stays like this – I don't feel any pain. And I still have the feeling that I love to go to the training session, to the club," he said.

Lewandowski has scored 688 senior career goals for club and country since starting out as a teenager with Znik Pruszkow in Poland's lower leagues. He was spotted internationally around 15 years ago after with top flight Lech Poznan and was infamously close to joining Blackburn Rovers until an ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano grounded flights across Europe at the critical moment.

Lewandowski's career might have been very different had he landed at Ewood Park in 2010, but within a few weeks signed for an emerging Borussia Dortmund instead.