Robert Lewandowski, Jadon Sancho, Thomas Müller and the Bundesliga’s season of records in 2019/20
The 2019/20 Bundesliga season will go down in history. While it will perhaps most be remembered for the coronavirus-enforced break, the campaign’s 306 matches saw the league’s record books rewritten on countless occasions with the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Jadon Sancho and Thomas Müller etching their names into the annals.
bundesliga.com takes a look at the multitude of records broken over the season…
Bayern Munich wrapped up a 29th Bundesliga title and their eighth in succession after a remarkable campaign that saw them break the 100-goal mark. Chief behind that was Lewandowski, who notched the fourth-best scoring campaign in history with his 34 goals. Only the legendary Gerd Müller has ever achieved higher totals (three times), meaning the Poland international recorded the best season ever by a non-German in the Bundesliga.
Watch: All of Lewandowski’s 34 goals in 2019/20
Lewandowski dropped a strong hint this would be a record-breaking year right at the very start of 2019/20 when he became the first player to score on each of the first 11 matchdays of a season (15 goals) and also the first person to net in 11 straight Bundesliga games. In total, the 31-year-old found the back of the net against 16 of Bayern’s 17 league opponents, equalling the record held by Müller and Werder Bremen’s Ailton. Borussia Mönchengladbach were the only team to escape Lewy’s ruthless streak.
While Lewandowski was the man in charge of scoring goals, Müller was head of assists, setting a new Bundesliga record since data collection began in 1992/93 of 21. He surpassed the previous best of 19 set by Kevin De Bruyne for Wolfsburg in 2014/15, despite the fact he played the full 90 minutes in just 15 of his 33 appearances. A remarkable feat by an extraordinary player who has now joined Franck Ribery as the most decorated player in Bundesliga history with nine titles.
Watch: All of Müller’s goals and assists this season
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Werner ended a four-year stint at RB Leipzig as the club’s record goalscorer, having netted 95 times in 159 competitive appearances. The 24-year-old also set a personal best with 28 goals in the league this season. Seventeen of those were scored away from home, which equalled Jupp Heynckes’ long-standing Bundesliga record from 1973/74.
One particular highlight for Werner in his final season with Leipzig was the record 8-0 win at home to Mainz on Matchday 10. With a hat-trick of goals and assists, he matched Claudio Pizarro’s record since detailed data collection began of having a hand in six goals in a single game. The Chelsea-bound forward also became the youngest player to make 200 Bundesliga appearances at the age of 23 years, eight months and 18 days when featuring and scoring against Cologne on Matchday 12.
Lewandowski and Werner got the goals, Müller got the assists, but Sancho had both in abundance. The England international finished the campaign having scored 17 goals and set up 16 strikes across 32 appearances. No player since 1992/93 had ever got at least 15 of both in a Bundesliga season.
Borussia Dortmund’s star forward also became the first teenager to reach 25 career Bundesliga goals when he netted the opener in the 5-0 win over Union Berlin, and the youngest player to score 30 goals in the league as he bagged a hat-trick at Paderborn.
Sancho wasn’t alone in breaking records at BVB in 2020. January recruit Haaland secured a prominent place in the history books on his maiden appearance as the first player to score a hat-trick as a substitute on his Bundesliga debut. It took the Norwegian just 23 minutes to do so, making him the fastest ever to three Bundesliga goals.
The striker also surpassed Dortmund predecessor Paco Alcacer (72 minutes) as the fastest to five goals in the league (56 minutes) and also became the first to net seven times in his first three games, eight in five and nine in six.
Watch: Haaland’s 23-minute debut hat-trick
Talking of quick, the 2019/20 campaign will go down as the fastest in history. The Bundesliga speed record tumbled faster than dominos, first claimed by Kingsley Coman on Matchday 6 (22.16 mph), then Kingsley Ehizibue the following week (22.3 mph). Achraf Hakimi then raced to the top with 22.49 mph on Matchday 16 and would go even quicker on Matchday 20 (22.67 mph), but in a reflection of the overall Bundesliga table, the Dortmund full-back was overtaken by the Bayern 'Roadrunner' Davies when he set off the speed gun at 22.69 mph the day the Munich club won the title at Bremen on Matchday 32.
Another Bayern youngster who hit the ground running was Davies’ former teammate in the reserves. Zirkzee made an instant impact in the first team, scoring two goals in just four minutes of playing time across the final two games of 2019 against Freiburg and Wolfsburg. It shattered the previous record held by Bremen’s Andree Wiedener, who needed nine minutes to reach two goals, although he did so across three appearances.
Watch: Zirkzee’s Man of the Matchday display against Freiburg
Zirkzee was a relatively mature 18 when he burst onto the Bundesliga compared to Bayer Leverkusen winger Wirtz. The Cologne youth product became the youngest Werkself player in top-flight history, succeeding Kai Havertz, when he made his debut on Matchday 26 at 17 years and 15 days. It made him the third-youngest in league history, but when he netted a late consolation against Bayern on Matchday 30, he claimed the record as the youngest scorer ever in the Bundesliga at the age of 17 years and 34 days.
Watch: Wirtz becomes the youngest scorer in Bundesliga history
Teammate Havertz knows a thing or two about breaking youth records, and this season the 21-year-old Germany international stole the honour of youngest player to make 100 Bundesliga appearances from Werner, doing so in the Matchday 15 derby against Cologne at 20 years and 186 days. Havertz also became the first player under the age of 21 to score 35 Bundesliga goals and had been the youngest to reach 30 goals on Matchday 25 before Sancho topped him four games later.
A full decade Havertz’s senior, Petersen scored four of his 11 goals this season after coming off the bench for Freiburg. The first of those was the winner on Matchday 9 against Leipzig, which saw him claim the outright league record for most goals as a substitute (22). He has since left previous record-holder Pizarro in his wake and extended the total to 25.
Fortuna Düsseldorf may have been relegated on the final day, but Hennings still managed to make it into the top five scorers this season with 15 goals. He also secured his place in the record books as the first player in Bundesliga history to score three equalisers in a game, as his hat-trick in the final 28 minutes against Schalke on Matchday 11 saw Fortuna secure a 3-3 draw.
Watch: Hennings’ record-breaking performance at Schalke
It was a successful maiden campaign at Dortmund for Hazard, chipping in with seven goals and 13 assists. His third strike of the season against Düsseldorf on Matchday 18 took the former Gladbach forward to 34 career Bundesliga goals and made him the top scoring Belgian in the league’s history ahead of Emile Mpenza. He’d reached 38 by the end of the campaign.
It was a long and arduous season, but you wouldn’t think that looking at Hertha Berlin’s Darida. The Czech midfielder twice broke the Bundesliga’s distance record in a single game – on consecutive weekends! He was already the holder of the record (8.8 miles) since tracking data collection began in 2011/12, before surpassing that with 8.9 miles against Augsburg on Matchday 29. He then topped that again the very next week by covering 9.1 miles against Dortmund to make it a Darida clean sweep atop the Bundesliga’s distance podium.
A Bundesliga winner with Wolfsburg, Hasebe has become a part of the league’s furniture during his spells with the Wolves, Nuremberg and most recently Eintracht Frankfurt. The Japan international has made 311 Bundesliga appearances, which is a record for an Asian player and surpasses the previous best held by South Korea’s Bum-Kun Cha (308).
Watch: Hasebe: Frankfurt's record-setting Asian still going strong
Bayern’s left-back-cum-centre-back ended the season with a record-equalling ninth Bundesliga title at the age of just 28, and he also became his nation’s record appearance holder in the league. His 265th game on the day Bayern wrapped up the title in Bremen saw him overtake former Werder and FCB man Andreas Herzog at the top of the Austrian standings.
Watch: Alaba’s Bundesliga mixtape
A perhaps unwanted record was bestowed upon Paderborn midfielder Gjasula, who ended the campaign with 17 yellow cards in 29 appearances and surpassed Tomasz Hajto’s previous 'best' of 16 for Duisburg in 1998/99. But was the man himself bothered? Not in the slightest. “Honestly, I don’t care,” the Albania international said. “I’m glad when I finish games and don’t get sent off. As long as I manage that, I don’t care how many yellow cards I’ve got.”
There were even records set off the pitch in 2019/20. Bayern were in deep trouble after their 5-1 loss to Frankfurt on Matchday 10 that spelled the end of Niko Kovac, but it’s been all smiles since Flick took charge. Starting with an opening 4-0 victory over Dortmund, Bayern went on to win 21 of their 24 Bundesliga games under Joachim Löw’s former assistant (D1, L2).
Watch: Flick and Bayern’s title journey
Flick's win rate of 88 per cent is the highest of any head coach in the league’s history.
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