Robert Lewandowski: Bayern Munich’s record breaker and MD33's Man of the Matchday
Making history and setting records is not something that happens very often – unless your name is Robert Lewandowski. The Bayern Munich striker added to his personal collection with a new single-season best-mark for a foreign-born player with his 32nd and 33rd goals against Freiburg on Matchday 33.
If that sounds like a bit of a mouthful to digest, the bite-size takeaway is that he beat an existing record set by former Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The Arsenal forward scored 31 Bundesliga goals in his last full season at Dortmund in 2016/17, a tally that stood as the best ever registered by a non-German player in the league's history. Until now.
Lewandowski equalled that total with the title-clinching strike in Bayern's Matchday 32 victory away to Werder Bremen, and his brace in the 3-1 win over Freiburg broke new ground, lifting him to 33 Bundesliga goals in 2019/20.
The fact he scores so frequently makes it easy to become desensitised to the scope of his scoring feats, but it is worth pausing to acknowledge a living legend in the flesh.
Only four times in Bundesliga history has someone scored more goals in a single campaign: Bayern icon Gerd Müller, who hit 40 (1971/72), 38 (1969/70) and 36 (1972/73), as well as Cologne's Dieter Müller, who posted 34 in 1976/77.
Watch: Lewandowski on target as Bayer seal the title on Matchday 32
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Lewandowski's latest feat keeps him in line to win the European Golden Shoe award ahead of the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Ciro Immobile, and is just one of a number of records he has established in 2019/20.
On that particular list are scoring more than anyone else in Europe's top five leagues in 2019 (25), overtaking Jupp Heynckes to move third in the Bundesliga's all-time scoring charts (currently on 233) and becoming the first person ever to score in each the first 11 games of a season.
His commitment to diet, training and endless shooting drills are well-known, but Hansi Flick believes Lewandowski's prolificity is also a byproduct of his team-first ethos.
"Robert knows that the most important thing is for the team to be successful," said the Bayern head coach of Lewandowski, who now has 48 goals in 40 competitive outings this term, in the wake of the Freiburg triumph. "He can't achieve anything on his own, he needs his teammates to set up him.
"But of course he's got the quality to score up front, or to set others up, as he did today. He was involved in all three goals. That's obviously great. He knows the team is the focus but if he can get a record or two along the way, then all the better. I think the team are happy for him as well."
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