Lewandowski vs. Alacer: a worthy top-scorer race

For the first time since 2016/17 and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s last full Bundesliga campaign, Bayern Munich’s Lewandowski looks to have real competition on the goalscoring front, with Borussia Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer showing himself to be a true contender for the coveted Torjägerkanone.

In his nine seasons since arriving in the Bundesliga with BVB, Lewandowski has been banging in the goals at an average of one every 111 minutes – second only to the league’s all-time greatest scorer, Gerd Müller, for players with at least 30 goals. The Polish goal machine has finished as the Bundesliga’s top scorer in four seasons.

Watch: ALL 22 of Lewandowski's goals from 2018/19!

The tightest of those races for the canon was the aforementioned season with Aubameyang, where the Dortmund man pipped his former teammate by a single goal, scoring two on the final day to finish on 31 and set a new record for a non-German in the Bundesliga.

A potential follow-up race was cut short the next year by Aubameyang’s January departure to Arsenal, but Borussia threw forward a new challenger last year in the form of Alcacer.

The Spain international, originally on loan from Barcelona, netted 18 goals in total, including a single-season Bundesliga-record 12 from the bench. In the end, Lewandowski finished the campaign as a comfortable winner on 22, but he played nearly three times as many minutes.

Now Alcacer is fully fit and playing from the start, we look to be in for one of the greatest – and highest-scoring – races to be top scorer the Bundesliga has ever seen. No one is saying we’ll be in the realms of Müller’s 40 goals from 1971/72, but the stats show great potential for a cracker.

Dortmund’s current front man averages a goal every 66 minutes in his Bundesliga career and has already registered three from his two games this season – one every 60 minutes.

Watch: A closer look at Alcacer’s opening brace and assist

Even that, though, leaves him trailing Lewandowski at this still early stage. Bayern’s talisman is setting the pace in the league in its nascent state with five goals – one every 36 minutes – and in fact remains the only player to have scored for the seven-time defending champions this season.

With 207 career Bundesliga goals to his name – the fifth most of any player in history – Lewandowski is certainly a proven goalscorer in the German top flight. He also possesses almost superhuman fitness levels, having missed just five Bundesliga matches through injury in nine seasons.

Despite a season in Germany and 18 league goals, Alcacer remains a relative unknown and his numbers perhaps viewed with caution. Prior to 2019/20 he had only completed 90 minutes four times in the Bundesliga, and not once before March. Two thirds of his goals also came prior to the winter break.

In stark contrast to Lewandowski, who completed 41 matches alone in 2018/19, Alcacer had played 90 minutes just 11 times across two seasons with Barcelona. That was the reason Borussia coach Lucien Favre was so cautious in how he used his striker last year.

The Swiss tactician now seems content enough to give his frontman a full runout and has reaped the rewards so far with a 100 per cent record from four competitive matches, with Alcacer playing 90 minutes and scoring in all of them.

Watch: The Bundesliga’s top scorers since 2000

Lewandowski has undoubtedly proven himself the king in the Bundesliga over several years, but a pretender has emerged with a serious claim to his throne. As Dortmund look set to challenge Bayern’s seven-year reign, expect to see Alcacer push and test Lewandowski like few else before.

The race for the Torjägerkanone looks like being just as enthralling as the one for the title in 2019/20.