Robert Lewandowski on track to shatter records

When Bayern Munich host Lazio in the second leg of their Champions League Round of 16 clash on Wednesday, Robert Lewandowski will have the chance to reach a milestone of scoring 40 goals for his club across all competitions in a single campaign for the sixth straight season. The Bayern forward is currently on 38 goals from 34 games in the 2020/21 season and with the form he is in, a brace on Wednesday, in a tie in which Bayern have a 4-1 lead from the first leg, is not improbable.

Even if he doesn’t score, it should only be a matter of time before Lewandowski scores a couple more goals this season, barring any major injury. The significance of this number – 40 –can be better understood when compared to those of the two best footballers of this generation. Cristiano Ronaldo has had nine seasons where he scored 40 or more goals for his club across competitions – eight for Real Madrid and one for Manchester United – while Lionel Messi has done it in 10 seasons at Barcelona.

Lewandowski's goalscoring abilities may get overshadowed because he plays in the Ronaldo-Messi era, but it's utterly remarkable in its own right. Last season, his 55 goals in all competitions played the central role in Bayern’s treble triumph. It led to him being declared the best men’s player by FIFA, although he was unlucky to miss out on the Ballon d’Or after the award was scrapped due to the pandemic. But what makes Lewandowski the most potent No. 9 in the world today is the consistency with which he scores.

The 32-year-old Poland international equalised German great Klaus Fischer’s Bundesliga goal tally last weekend – 268 goals – to become the joint-second highest scorer in the league. It says a lot about how prolific Lewandowski has been that he has taken 220 less games than Fischer to reach that mark.

He is now 97 goals short of Gerd Mueller’s all-time Bundesliga record, who scored 365 times in 427 games. Lewandowski is also marginally ahead of the legendary Mueller in terms of scoring frequency in the league: Lewandowski scores once every 103 minutes compared to Mueller's 105.

The Polish forward is fast closing in on a Mueller record that has long been viewed as unbreakable. With 32 goals in 24 league appearances this season, Lewandowski is eight goals away from matching Mueller’s record of scoring 40 times in the 1971/72 Bundesliga season. No player has scored as many times in a single season. With Bayern still having to play nine times in the league this season, the odds will be in Lewandowski’s favour to cross Mueller’s mark.

“By the end of this season, he will break the record and set a new one (of goals per season). When it happens, remember that you heard it from me first,” Germany and Bayern great Lothar Matthaeus told reporters in January.

When Bayern faced Lewandowski’s former club Borussia Dortmund earlier this month in the league, the Pole bagged a hat-trick that helped his side come back from two goals down to win 4-2. Matthaeus, in an interview to bundesliga.com on Tuesday, referenced that game to stress on Lewandowski’s threat as a striker.

“Lewandowski had nine shots against Borussia Dortmund and scored three of them. It's crazy what he is producing and it’s not like he is shooting from 30 metres just to have an attempt on goal: when Lewandowski has a shot it's really dangerous for the opponent,” he said.

There is a growing opinion about Lewandowski being the best player in the world at the moment; or, at least, the best striker in the world. As Lewandowski’s teammate Serge Gnabry put it during an online interaction in November: “The statistics speak for him. The amount of goals he has scored in the last couple of years, at a very consistent level, they talk for themselves. For sure, he is the best striker in the world.”

According to former Germany forward Juergen Klinsmann, Lewandowski has been the best in the last couple of years, although he added that Messi and Ronaldo remain the best of the lot in the last decade. Klinsmann said that among the players Borussia Dortmund have lost to wealthier clubs in recent years, there hasn’t been a bigger loss than that of Lewandowski, who joined Bayern on a free transfer in 2014.

Dortmund may lose them, but the club is making a habit out of producing uber-prolific strikers; right now, they have Erling Braut Haaland.

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