Robert Lewandowski's top 5 moments at Bayern Munich
Robert Lewandowski left Bayern Munich following a record-breaking spell totalling 344 goals in 375 appearances in all competitions. bundesliga.com recounts LewanGOALski's top five moments for the record champions...
5) Becomes the Bundesliga's record non-German scorer (9 March 2019)
When Lewandowski joined Bayern on a free transfer in summer 2014, he had already helped himself to 74 goals in 131 Bundesliga games for Borussia Dortmund. Just three years into his dance with the red ballet, the Pole reached 100 Bayern goals, doing so on his 137th competitive appearance for the club. He duly ticked the box as the first player to produce 100 goals at the Allianz Arena in early 2019, before surpassing former Bayern teammate Claudio Pizarro as the Bundesliga's record foreign-born scorer. His 196th Bundesliga strike fell against Wolfsburg on his 277th Bundesliga outing, and it took him into the Bundesliga's all-time top five for goals.
4) Five goals in nine minutes vs. Wolfsburg (24 September 2015)
Dortmund rank as Lewandowski's favourite opponent, closely followed by Wolfsburg, against whom he scored 26 goals in as many games. Lewy's penchant for the Wolves and multiple-goal showings - he scored more than once in 63 of his 253 Bundesliga appearances for Bayern - were laid bare on one famous September night in Munich. Entering the fray at half-time with the Bavarians trailing 1-0, Lewandowski huffed, puffed and blew the roof off the Allianz Arena by scoring in the the 51st, 52nd, 55th, 57th and 60th minutes. In the process, he set Guinness World Records for: the most goals scored by a substitute in the Bundesliga (five); the fastest Bundesliga hat-trick (three minutes and 22 seconds); four-goal haul (five minutes and 42 seconds) and five-goal salvo (eight minutes and 59 seconds) in a Bundesliga match.
Watch: Robert Lewandowski's five goals in nine minutes in full
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3) European treble heaven (2019/20)
Lewandowski's procession of goals translated into, among other things, 10 Bundesliga titles, three DFB Cups and the UEFA Champions League. In 2019/20, the Warsaw-born striker got his hands on all three whilst finishing as outright top scorer in each competition (34 Bundesliga goals, six in the DFB Cup and 15 in Europe). He is the only player in history to achieve that free-scoring feat. Along the way, Lewandowski became the first Bundesliga player to score in each of the opening nine, 10 and 11 matches of a season, outstripping the record set by ex-Dortmund teammate Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He also scored a Champions League-record four goals in under 15 minutes in a 6-0 drubbing of Red Star Belgrade, and equalled Cristiano Ronaldo's gold standard of nine away goals in single Champions League campaign.
2) Breaks Gerd Müller's single season scoring record (22 May 2021)
The following year, Lewandowski set an unprecendented best-mark for single-season Bundesliga goals. Bayern's latter-day No.9 struck 41 times, eclipsing Gerd Müller's 40-goal record that had stood for almost half a century. Over the course of the campaign, the Poland international registered five braces, four hat-tricks and one four-goal blitz. He only failed to score in four of the 29 matches he featured in, and never went more than one without finding the net. His most prolific burst fell between Matchdays 21 to 34, when he tallied 17 goals in 10 appearances either side of a four-match absence due to a knee ligament injury. He also sat out the Matchday 6 win over Cologne. When Müller hit 40 in 1971/72, he played in all 34 of Bayern's league fixtures.
Watch: All 312 of Lewandowski's Bundesliga goals
1) Wins second straight FIFA Best Men's award (17 January 2022)
Lewandowski ended 2021 with a bang, having not long broken Müller's record for most Bundesliga goals in a calendar year (43). The 2020 UEFA Player of the Year had already claimed a second successive European Golden Shoe for his efforts when he collected the inaugural Striker of the Year gong at the Ballon d'Or ceremony, where he finished a contentious second to Lionel Messi in the main prize draw. Even the great Argentine admitted Lewy deserved to take top honours at least once - with the 2019/20 award having been cancelled due to the interruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic - but justice was served at the FIFA Best gala. Lewandowski took the Best Men's prize for the second straight year, beating off competition from Messi and Liverpool's Mohamed Salah to cement his place as an all-time great.
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