"There was talk of him and another player coming over if we paid for their trip to Norway," Roennestad said. "We tried to get the club to agree, but it didn't work.
"It was simply that he was an unknown player from the Polish third division. To pay for him to come here on trial wasn't acceptable at that time."
A year after the Norwegians rejected the chance to take him on trial, Lewandowski, who scored five goals in nine minutes for Bayern against VfL Wolfsburg on Tuesday, made his international debut for Poland and moved to Lech Poznan.
He subsequently joined Borussia Dortmund before moving to Bundesliga giants Bayern, becoming one of Europe's most feared strikers.
"It could of course have been great if we had managed it, but it's fine that it went the way it did," a rueful Roennestad said.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor in Stockholm; editing by Toby Davis)
Share
