Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski overtakes Gerd Müller to set his own Klassiker record
If you can steal a record from Bayern Munich great Gerd Müller, then you must be doing a lot right.
Der Bomber’s all-time leading total of 365 Bundesliga goals looks safe for now, but on Saturday one of his best-marks was claimed by Bayern’s current goal-poacher supreme, as Robert Lewandowski notched for the 15th time in Der Klassiker to become the fixture’s all-time leading scorer.
His former club Borussia Dortmund were the victims – the fifth game in a row he has netted against against them – and the Pole’s brace in a crushing 5-0 victory brought two added bonuses: moving the Reds back to the top of the league above BVB and taking him past the 200-goal mark in the Bundesliga.
Watch: Robert Lewandowski on his latest career milestone
In the league’s 56-year history only four other players have notched a double century of goals – Manfred Burgsmüller (213), Jupp Heynckes (220), Klaus Fischer (268) and the legendary Müller himself – and Lewandowski could not hide his delight in joining such esteemed company.
"It really means a lot," said the 30-year-old following Saturday’s success. "I never believed I’d score so many goals in the Bundesliga. I’m really proud to be part of that club of five players, and maybe I can overtake one or two of them – they’re not that far ahead of me now!"
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A breakdown of his goals shows you that no matter the opposition, the Warsaw native simply finds the net. He has plundered 14 goals against a title rival in Dortmund; 13 against a regular European participant in Schalke; 14 against Werder Bremen; and a staggering 20 against Wolfsburg, a figure inflated by his historic nine-minute five-goal haul in 2015/16.
That total against the Wolves, incidentally, is the same number of strikes with which Lewandowski ended 2013/14, the season he won the first of his three Torjägerkanone awards. And take a moment to reflect on this: he has found the net against 24 of the 27 Bundesliga clubs he has faced, and needs just one more victim to reach double figures for teams against whom he has plundered 10 or more goals.
There will never be another Gerd Müller, but perhaps the greatest compliment we can pay the Bavarians’ current leading man is that there will likely never be another Robert Lewandowski either.
Lewandowski’s Bundesliga victims in full:
Wolfsburg – 20 goals/ 17 apps
Augsburg – 18 goals/ 13 apps
Hamburg – 15 goals/ 14 apps
Bremen – 14 goals/ 14 apps
Mainz – 14 goals/ 14 apps
Freiburg - 14 goals/ 13 apps
Dortmund – 14 goals/ 10 apps
Schalke – 13 goals/ 15 apps
Hannover – 13 goals/ 12 apps
Hoffenheim – 9 goals/ 16 apps
Cologne - 9 goals/ 11 apps
Stuttgart – 7 goals/ 15 apps
Nuremberg – 7 goals/ 8 apps
Hertha Berlin – 5 goals/ 13 apps
Eintracht Frankfurt – 5 goals/ 10 apps
Borussia Mönchengladbach – 4 goals/ 13 apps
RB Leipzig – 4 goals/ 4 apps
Ingolstadt – 4 goals/ 4 apps
Bayer Leverkusen – 3 goals/ 14 apps
Greuther Fürth – 3 goals/ 2 apps
Paderborn – 3 goals/ 2 apps
Bayern Munich – 1 goal/ 6 apps
Darmstadt – 1 goal/ 3 apps
Kaiserslautern – 1 goal/ 3 apps
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