Opinion: Robert Lewandowski's incredible achievements mustn't get lost in Lionel Messi/Cristiano Ronaldo era
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Published 03/11/2021 at 08:52 GMT
Robert Lewandowski scored a hat trick in Bayern Munich's 5-2 Champions League victory over Zenit St Petersburg as the Pole broke yet more records. The 33-year-old's achievements can sometimes get lost in the discussion around Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, but there is no better goalscorer in the game right now.
Robert Lewandowski celebrates scoring for Bayern Munich.
Image credit: Getty Images
It took Lionel Messi 102 matches to make it to 80 goals in the Champions League while Cristiano Ronaldo needed 116 outings in the competition to make it to that milestone. Robert Lewandowski, however, tallied 80 Champions League goals in just 100 matches, and he did so emphatically with a hat trick in Bayern Munich’s 5-2 win over Zenit St Petersburg.
Julian Nagelsmann are widely considered frontrunners to go all the way in this season’s Champions League with the Bavarians almost flawless in the four group games they have played. Indeed, Bayern Munich will take some beating as they target a second European crown in just three seasons.
Lewandowski is the perfect frontman for Nagelsmann’s team. While Bayern Munich play with a lot of fluidity, the Polish international gives them someone to play off and around. The 33-year-old plays his part in the build-up play, but his primary role is to convert chances when they are created.
While Nagelsmann has revitalised Bayern Munich since his arrival in the summer, it’s been this way for a number of years. Lewandowski is a giant of the European game and arguably the greatest player in the history of the Bavarian club, and at 33 he is only getting better. He has never been better than he is right now.
Nobody boasts better goalscoring numbers in 2021 than Lewandowski who has bagged an incredible 36 goals in 27 appearances for Bayern Munich. For context, that is a third more than Messi (23 goals for Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain) who is considered the favourite to win this year’s Ballon d’Or. Lewandowski doesn’t need an individual prize to prove himself, though.
If Lewandowski fires Bayern Munich to another Champions League title, his second during his time at the club, this period of his career will be just as impressive as anything previously produced by Messi or Ronaldo. His longevity at the top of the European game is illustrated by his standing as the third-top scorer in the history of the Champions League - only Messi and Ronaldo have scored more.
“He's so hungry to score goals and he’s so hungry to assist goals for his teammates as well,” Nagelsmann explained after a recent 7-0 win over Bochum in which Lewandowski scored.
“Today, he had three or four great passes in the final third to create chances for his teammates, so in the end he's still the best forward in the world and he'll score a lot of goals for us this season as well.”
It’s not just that Lewandowski is a great goalscorer, it’s that he is a scorer of great goals, and of all kinds of goals - see the difference in the three goals he scored against Zenit St Petersburg. Get tight to him and he has the pace to accelerate past a defender. Give him space and he has the shooting range to fire in from distance. Lewandowski is a centre forward built for the modern game.
Some might point to the likes of Karim Benzema and Harry Kane as better examples of a modern forward, and it’s certainly true that the aforementioned duo do more to conduct attacks than Lewandowski, but nobody has mastered the art of goalscoring in 2021 quite like the 33-year-old.
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