Poland international striker Robert Lewandowski has agreed to a deal with the Chicago Fire and will join the club this summer, sources briefed on the situation tell The Athletic.

Lewandowski will sign a two-year contract and will be one of MLS’s highest-paid players, sources add. TalkSport and Sky Sports first reported Lewandowski’s decision.

The 37-year-old visited Chicago earlier this month as he weighed his options. Lewandowski is a free agent after his contract with Barcelona expired this summer.

Lewandowski will immediately become one of the league’s marquee stars and will arrive in a city with a proud Polish community. The Fire are trying to build up excitement around a winning team, but also with a star that can draw new fans to the team as they look to sell tickets for the new stadium, McDonald’s Park, that will open in the South Loop area of the city in 2028.

The forward began his legendary career in his native Poland and grew to stardom for Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. He won 10 Bundesliga titles between his time with Dortmund and Bayern, then three LaLiga titles with Barcelona.

Lewandowski won the 2020 Champions League with Bayern and is one of the best players in his generation.

“We’re trying to recruit world-class players,” Fire director of football and head coach Gregg Berhalter told Up & Adams earlier this month. “We think (Lewandowski would) be a great signing not only for the Chicago Fire, but for the league, to have a player of that caliber. We see him right up there with Messi in terms of ability, and it’d be great for the city of Chicago.”

There’s also one other potentially big impact to this Lewandowski signing: the chance to add Leon Goretzka. The Fire remain in discussions with the former Bayern Munich midfielder and hope that by signing his former Bayern teammate, it may put them in position to convince the 31-year-old German international to opt for the MLS side. Goretzka also has interest from teams in Europe.

The Fire hope to get Lewandowski signed and sort the immigration work immediately so that the Polish striker has a chance to make his debut on July 16 against Vancouver in the league’s return to play ahead of the World Cup final, sources said.

The plan is to pair him up top with Cuypers, the league’s leading scorer, and to see if boasting one of MLS’s best attacks can push the team into a position to challenge for MLS Cup.

Lewandowski joins cast of stars in MLS – but questions remain for the league

Analysis by national soccer reporter Paul Tenorio

Lewandowski is just the latest in a long line of big-name players who have joined MLS since 2023, when Lionel Messi signed with Inter Miami. His signing is another indication of a concerted push the league is making to add more stars to MLS in the wake of the commercial success around Messi and Son Heung-min in Los Angeles.

This level of arrivals isn’t anything new for MLS, however.

In 2015, MLS teams signed Kaká, Frank Lampard, David Villa, Andrea Pirlo, Didier Drogba, Steven Gerrard, Giovani Dos Santos, Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco. The difference will come in what MLS decides to do around its roster rules to supplement this rush of stars, from Messi and Rodrigo De Paul in Miami to Antoine Griezmann in Orlando, Thomas Müller in Vancouver and Son in Los Angeles.

MLS plans to flip its calendar beginning in 2027, but without substantial changes to roster rules, it is difficult to build up teams that can be more competitive on a regional and global level.

Yan Diomande has chosen Paris Saint-Germain as his next destination if he leaves RB Leipzig this summer.

The Ivory Coast international, 19, believes in the PSG project led by chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi and football advisor Luis Campos, sources speaking anonymously have told The Athletic, and wants to play for head coach Luis Enrique.

The winger sees a move to the French capital as giving him the best opportunity to consistently compete for trophies and potentially become a future Ballon D’or winner.

Liverpool had previously expressed a willingness to put forward a package approaching €100million (£86.8m; $115m) for him.

Leipzig were unwilling to accept that offer and have been holding out for closer to €130m while also trying to tie Diomande to fresh terms. The teenager signed a contract until 2030 when he joined from Spanish side Leganes last summer.

Diomande is currently at the World Cup with Ivory Coast and is likely to feature when they face Norway in the round-of-32 stage in Arlington, Texas on Tuesday.

Should he leave he will likely become Leipzig’s biggest sale, topping the fees paid for Benjamin Sekso by Manchester United in 2025 (€76.5m plus add-ons) or the €90m that Manchester City paid the club to sign Josko Gvardiol in 2023.

One of the most coveted talents on the planet

Analysis by football data writer Thomas Harris

Barely 18 months ago, Diomande was playing his football for DME Sports Academy in Florida. Now impressing at this summer’s World Cup, he is one of the most coveted players on the planet.

The Ivorian’s ascent has been frighteningly quick, crashing his way through European football in a whirlwind of zig-zagging runs and emphatic finishes. It began at Spanish side Leganes, where he spent three months with the reserves after his arrival from the United States, before earning his professional debut against Real Madrid. His first goal soon followed, quickly backed up with statement performances against Villarreal and Real Valladolid — games in which his prodigious dribbling ability became clear.

Barely 500 minutes of football was all it took to convince RB Leipzig to make their move, and Diomande has continued to thrive as the chief outlet down the flanks at the Bundesliga club. No player in the German top flight has tried to dribble past an opponent more often last season, while his success rate is the highest of any winger across Europe with at least 50 take-on attempts. He is one of the few wide players in world football who genuinely combines quantity and quality out wide.

Diomande enjoyed a fine debut season for RB Leipzig (Christof Koepsel/Getty Images)

The 19-year-old’s rapid feet and slender figure allow him to dart quickly in either direction, but there is also a sense of power and springiness to Diomande’s dribbling when he is in full flow, able to bounce from challenge to challenge and keep the ball moving forward at speed. It makes him a potent weapon on the counter-attack, where his dribbling fluency translates to a smooth shooting action. He is capable of shifting the ball quickly and generating power and accuracy with both feet.

Such unpredictability was on display in the Bundesliga run-in; he clinched a late win against Borussia Monchengladbach with a shimmy and a thumping finish on his left in early April, before opening the scoring away at Eintracht Frankfurt seven days later after a mazy run, a chop inside and a curling shot with his right.

Diomande has already adapted to the international stage, too, scoring three times in 13 appearances for Ivory Coast and making his mark at the Africa Cup of Nations and in helping his country progress from a tough group including Germany and Ecuador at the World Cup.

Trayvon Bromell beat fellow American Noah Lyles by one-hundredth of a second in the men’s 100m at the Paris Diamond League.

Bromwell, 30, clocked 9.91s from lane eight in near-completely still conditions (+0.1m/s wind), starting quicker than anyone else and holding off Lyles late in the race — five different men broke 10 seconds, including 2021 Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs (9.96s), Akani Simbine (9.97s) and world indoor 60m champion Jordan Antony (9.99s).

Anthony and Lyles are training partners, with a 9.92s run here Lyles’ third sub-10 clocking of 2026 but a slow start, even by Lyles’ standards, cost him. He was in fifth at 60m and seven hundredths down on Bromell, and while his top-end speed meant he jumped four spots by the finish, he ran out of track to win.

Bromell has battled back from injuries in recent years, with this just his second Diamond League win since the start of 2025. He finished second over 60m at U.S. indoors in early March, and later that month took bronze at world indoors in March — both finals won by Anthony.

“I really liked my start, I pushed the wheel,” said Bromell to Diamond League media post-race. “I know that I have so much more in my tank, the times and data from my biomechanics make me excited for the season.”

Bromell, far left, won a tightly-contested race in Paris (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP via Getty Images)

He added that he will “go nuts” at the Prefontaine Classic next weekend, the annual American leg of the Diamond League in Eugene, Oregon.

Audrey Werro ran the fastest 800m in Diamond League history at the Paris leg, clocking 1:53.80 to win by nearly two seconds and improve her own world-leading time. She is the only woman to run sub-1:54 twice, having done so at the Stockholm Diamond League last month to go third all-time. This run is an improvement on that performance by nearly two tenths, bringing her within 0.52s of Jarmila Kratochvilova’s world record from 1983, something she will spend the rest of this summer chasing.

“I was not expecting to run this fast this season,” she said post-race. “These recent performances have really given e hope and built my confidence to what is coming next.”

Werro said pre-race that she was targeting a world record run, and had pacemaker Myrte van der Schoot cover the first lap in 55.35s to set her up. Werro hit the front from the break point 100m in, with nine women strung out behind her when they hit the bell.

A good race for second took place behind Werro in the second lap, with Femke Broeders-Bol and home favourite Anais Bourgoin battling it out. Broeders-Bol nipped ahead of her on the line, setting a huge lifetime best of 1:55.60, in only her second outdoor race in the distance since stepping up from 400m hurdles, and Bourgoin was rewarded with a 1:55.65 French national record. All ten women broke two minutes, an incredible sign of depth.

Werro celebrated another 800m victory in Paris (Sona Maleterova/Getty Images)

Elsewhere in Paris, Diamond League records were set in the women’s and men’s 400m, impressive considering the meet was nearly cancelled amid a heatwave this week.

Collen Kebinatshipi won the men’s 400m in a time of 43.54. The Botswana athlete ran just one hundredth slower than he did to win the World Championship final last September, and this is the second quickest by anyone in 2026 (behind Samuel Ogazi’s 43.38 from the NCAA finals in May). Zakithi Nene of South Africa also cracked 44 seconds, running 43.98 out of lane seven, two outside Kebinatshipi.

Marileidy Paulinho produced a storming back-half of the race in the women’s 400m, finishing in a world lead 48.48, almost a second ahead of runner-up Gloria Lurdes Manuel (49.37). It’s the ninth sub-49s clocking for the Dominican athlete, who is the Olympic champion over the distance, though was beaten by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone at the World Championships last year.

A strong showing of middle-distance running was completed by 20-year-old Australian Cam Myers, who took down Frenchman Azeddine Habz to win the men’s 1500m in 3:28.00 — it improved his own world-leading time and bettered his Oceanic record. Most importantly it is a first Diamond League win for Myers, who has repeatedly finished in the top three but has found himself boxed in at the end of races and without the space to kick.