Bundesliga

2019-09-07T06:45:00Z

Robert Lewandowski: A goal-filled career in numbers

Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski is still scoring for fun in this his 10th season of Bundesliga football.
Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski is still scoring for fun in this his 10th season of Bundesliga football.

The football world is running out of superlatives to describe Robert Lewandowski. The Bayern Munich striker has cemented his place as the greatest foreign goal scorer to ever grace Germany's top flight.

That's not all the 208-strike Pole has achieved in a career saturated with goals that, at the age of 31, looks to be entering its prime.

Confetti in hand, bundesliga.com celebrates some of LewanGOALski's other landmark moments...

1

Snapped up from Polish outfit Lech Poznan after an Icelandic ash cloud reportedly scuppered a potential move to Blackburn Rovers, Lewandowski made his Bundesliga debut in the colours of Dortmund on 22 August 2010. A month later, he scored his first goal at Germany’s top table, against none other than BVB’s fierce rivals Schalke in the Revierderby.

4

Lewandowski hit eight, 22 and 24 goals in his first three seasons on the books at Dortmund. He won back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012, but had to wait until 2013/14 - his final season as a BVB player before joining Bayern - to claim his first top scorer’s cannon with 20 goals. Lewy scooped his second Torjägerkanone in 2015/16 after becoming the first player since Dieter Müller (1976/77) to serve up a 30-goal single season, and completed his hat-trick in 2017/18 thanks to another eye-watering haul of 29 strikes in 30 games. A fourth - and successful title defence - followed in 2018/19 (22 goals).

Watch: All 22 of Lewandowski's Bundesliga goals in 2018/19

5

Among Lewandowski’s record-breaking 2015/16 return were FIVE goals in one unforgettable meeting with Wolfsburg in which he set Guinness World Records for: the most goals scored by a substitute in the Bundesliga (five); the fastest Bundesliga hat-trick (three minutes and 22 seconds); the fastest four goals in a Bundesliga match (five minutes and 42 seconds) and the fastest five goals in a Bundesliga match (eight minutes and 59 seconds).

5

Lewandowski is the first player since former Bayern striker Roy Makaay (2005/06) to tally five goals after the first two matches of a season. Gerd Müller is the only player to register more (six, 1977/78).

7

In his nine full seasons in the Bundesliga, Lewandowski has lifted the title on seven occasions (twice with Dortmund, five on the spin with Bayern). Only 11 players have won more Bundesliga titles, and only two of them are still playing. Unsurprisingly, they’re bothcontemporaries of the Poland international at Bayern: David Alaba and Thomas Müller.

9

Lewandowski's sensational hat-trick at Schalke on Matchday 2 of the 2019/20 season was his ninth in the Bundesliga. Only five players have hit more in Bundesliga history.

9

Back to the season in which Lewandowski went from world-class to world’s best, the Bundesliga sharpshooter set another top-flight record after scoring nine goals in just three successive games between Matchdays 6-8. As well as putting five past Wolfsburg, he grabbed braces against Mainz and former employers Dortmund.

Watch: When Lewandowski scored five goals in one historic nine-minute spell

17

Lewandowski has scored against all but one of the 18 current Bundesliga clubs. He can - and probably will - make it a full house when Bayern travel to Fortuna Düsseldorf on Matchday 12…

20

If Lewandowski hasn’t scored against Fortuna, it’s probably because he’s been saving a good chunk of his goals for Wolfsburg. He’s put 20 past them in 17 league appearances - more than he has against any other club.

22

A fox in the box and a penalty king, Lewandowski has successfully converted 24 of his 27 Bundesliga spot-kicks to date, including a record-equalling 17 in a row between February 2014 and March 2018. Curiously, it’s a best mark he shares with retired GOALKEEPER Hans-Jörg Butt.

Lewandowski guarantees goals from open and set plays.

30

A pillar of good health, Lewandowski has played in at least 30 matches of each and every one of his eight 34-game seasons in the Bundesliga, missing just 16 all told. No wonder his old Dortmund teammates used to call him 'The Body'.

50

When Lewandowski brought up his 50th Bundesliga goal in a game against VfB Stuttgart in March 2013, it marked the ninth successive match in which he found the net - another top-flight record, shared with Müller and Klaus Allofs. He’s also netted more than once on 50 separate occasions (42 braces, seven hat-tricks and one famous five-goal salvo); only Müller (87) and Jupp Heynckes (51) have rattled off more single-match multiples.

64

Lewandowski needed just 64 Bundesliga appearances to bring up his 50th goal in a Bayern shirt. No other player in history reached the milestone for one club in so few games.

Watch: Lewandowski analysed by Tifo Football

120

With 133 Bundesliga goals to show for his five-and-a-bit seasons at Bayern, Lewandowski is the club’s leading non-German marksman, ahead of the retired Arjen Robben (98). He’s also third in the all-time Bayern charts, 29 behind current chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, but 232 adrift of Müller.

150

On target against RB Leipzig on 13 May 2017, Lewandowski marked his 226th Bundesliga appearance with his 150th top-flight goal. He’s the 15th player to reach the milestone, and the second fastest after - you guessed it - Müller (192 matches).

195

Lewandowski became the Bundesliga’s joint record non-foreign goalscorer with his strike against Gladbach on 3 March 2019, tying former teammate Claudio Pizarro for first - albeit in significantly fewer top-flight outings: 280 to 463.

196 & 197

Lewandowski was at it again a week later on 9 March 2019, serving up another brace against favoured opposition Wolfsburg to claim the record outright.

200 & 201

Pizarro had held top spot since September 2010, but there's a sneaking suspicion Lewy's reign will be significantly longer after he brought up his double century in Der Klassiker on 6 April 2019.

208

Ending the 2018/19 campaign with a league-high 22 goals and kicking off 2019/20 with six in his first three outings, the Bayern No.9 currently ranks fifth in the Bundesliga's all-time scoring charts, behind Manfred Burgsmüller (213), Jupp Heynckes (220), Klaus Fischer (268) and the seemingly unassailable Müller (365).

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