bundesliga

Kane vs Lewandowski: A battle between two scoring greats

14.10.2024

Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski will go head-to-head on Wednesday when their sides meet in the Champions League, in what will be a mouthwatering clash between two of the game’s best-ever strikers.

Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski have been scoring goals for fun over the last decade, but they have more in common than just goals, namely hero status among the Bayern Munich faithful. Lewandowski spent eight incredible years in Bavaria, winning eight Bundesliga titles, four DFB Cups and the 2020 UEFA Champions League. While Kane is yet to pick up silverware in Bayern colours, he has set German football alight with his incredible eye for goal in his time here so far.

Kane is in just his second season with the club but has already racked up 57 goals in 55 games in all competitions. This includes 44 goals in 39 Bundesliga games, a total that saw him named the league’s top scorer in his debut 2023/24 campaign with 36 goals. In the Champions League, the Englishman has an equally prolific 12 goals in 14 games.

In Lewandowski’s first 55 games for the club he scored 29 times, with 17 of those coming in 31 Bundesliga games and another six coming in 12 Champions League games. While his first season may have been slightly less breathtaking than Kane’s, his second certainly wasn’t. Lewandowski bagged 10 goals in the first seven Bundesliga games, with FIVE (!) coming in one half of football against Wolfsburg. His heroics against Wolfsburg saw him score the fastest-ever Bundesliga hat-trick, with the five goals coming between the 51st and 60th minute and meaning that he took four Guinness World Records home with him, as well as the match ball!

That unforgettable feat was Lewandowski’s first for Bayern, and it came in his 57th game for the club. By contrast, Kane’s recent hat-trick against Stuttgart was his seventh for Bayern, and it came in his 55th game. The next Champions League game that followed the Pole’s record-breaking five-goal haul was against Dinamo Zagreb, where he scored his second hat-trick in a week. Kane also scored a hat-trick against Zagreb this season, just three days after he’d hit three against Holstein Kiel.

In their third Champions League games for Bayern, against Roma and Galatasaray respectively, both strikers scored and assisted in the same game. They also made an immediate impact against the tournament’s elite, with Lewandowski netting against his future club Barcelona in his debut Bayern campaign, while Kane scored and assisted across two legs against Real Madrid in his.

In the Bundesliga alone, Harry Kane has managed to score a goal every 78 minutes, the best ratio of any player with at least 25 Bundesliga goals, ever. His Polish counterpart is not far behind, having scored every 89 minutes in the league in a Bayern shirt.

Both strikers aren’t considered as greats on their goal counts alone, however, and their ability to drop deep and combine with teammates is another reason behind their successful careers. Lewandowski’s first 55 games for Bayern saw him provide 15 assists, while Kane has 18 in the same time.

Another factor behind their ability to perform at such high levels for so long is fitness. In order to hit such high numbers on a consistent basis, both strikers have had to ensure their availability for their side; since joining Bayern, Kane has missed just two Bundesliga games through injury at the end of the 2023/24 campaign. Lewandowski, whose wife Anna is a personal trainer and nutritionist, was likewise ever-present in his time at the club, appearing in 253 out of a possible 272 Bundesliga games, 238 of which were starts.

Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski are quite simply two shining examples of what it takes to be a striker at the top level, having excelled both inside and outside of the Bundesliga for years on end. On Wednesday, the two will meet at club level for the first time since the 2019/20 Champions League season, when Lewandowski was still scoring for fun at Bayern.