Robert Lewandowski and the top 10 Bundesliga goalscorers of the decade
Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski scored more goals than any other Bundesliga player between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019 - but who else makes the top 10? bundesliga.com counts down the decade's best goalscorers...
1) Robert Lewandowski (Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich)
Goals: 221
Games: 307
Lewandowski has not stopped scoring since joining Borussia Dortmund from Lech Poznan in July 2010. The Poland striker fired Dortmund to back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2010/11 and 2011/12, before claiming his first Bundesliga top scorer's prize in 2013/14. That was his final season at Dortmund, and the goals have continued to flow in a Bayern shirt. The Bundesliga's outright leading non-German marksman, of course, once netted FIVE in a famous nine-minute blitz against Wolfsburg in September 2015. He now sits third in the overall scoring charts and - with 19 goals to show for the first half of 2019/20 - is chasing down a fifth Torjägerkanone - and third in a row.
Watch: All 19 of Robert Lewandowski's Bundesliga goals so far in 2019/20
2) Marco Reus (Borussia Mönchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund)
Goals: 122
Games: 243
Marco Reus makes the top two, despite being an attacking midfielder by trade and having fought a swathe of career-threatening injuries down the years. His first goal of the 2010s came in a Borussia Mönchegladbach shirt, though it was actually his fifth in the Bundesliga. He enjoyed four straight double-digit hauls between 2010/11 and 2013/14, including a career-best tally of 18 goals in his final campaign as a Gladbach player in 2011/12. The Germany international went within a whisker of matching that impressive return in 2018/19, rattling off a talismanic 17 goals as Dortmund missed out on the title on the final day.
Watch: Marco Reus' Bundesliga mix tape
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3) Thomas Müller (Bayern Munich)
Goals: 107
Games: 314
Thomas Müller made history as the first Bundesliga player to reach 11 assists during the first half of a campaign in December 2019, but the Bayern man has shown himself to be equally adept at taking as making chances since bursting onto the scene under Louis van Gaal in 2009. Late in 2009/10 - his first full season of German football - Müller scored his maiden Bundesliga hat-trick, ending that particular campaign on 13 goals. Unlucky for some, but not Mr. Bayern. After sticking away seven and 12 respectively in 2010/11 and 2011/12, Müller celebrated three successive 13-goal hauls, before posting a career-best 20 in 2015/16. He has scored at least five times in his 10 full Bundesliga campaigns to date.
4) Mario Gomez (Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg, VfB Stuttgart)
Goals: 99
Games: 206
Mario Gomez had only just joined Bayern from boyhood club VfB Stuttgart when Müller started sniffing around opposition penalty areas. He was pipped to the top-scoring post by Wolfsburg cult hero Grafite in 2008/09 and only scored two of his 10 debut-season Bayern goals during the second half of 2009/10. He more than made up for that relatively modest tally, however, in the following campaign to claim his first and only Torjägerkanone courtesy of a 28-goal spread. It remains his most productive season to date as a Bundesliga player, though he did spend time in Italy and Turkey, before returning to almost single-handedly save Wolfsburg from the drop in 2016/17.
5) Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund)
Goals: 98
Games: 144
Dortmund fans must have known something special was afoot when former AC Milan youth product Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang helped himself to a Bundesliga debut hat-trick against Augsburg in August 2013. The Gabon international didn't disappoint. He scored 13 times under Jürgen Klopp in 2013/14, before being converted to an out-and-out striker and going toe-to-toe with Lewandowski in a goal-filled duel at a distance. Sixteen- and 25-goal hauls weren't enough in the previous campaigns, but Aubameyang made it fourth time lucky in 2016/17, striking 31 times to dethrone his former BVB teammate as the Bundesliga's sharpest shooter. He left for Arsenal in January 2018 as the German top tier's record African scorer.
Watch: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's final goals for Borussia Dortmund
6) Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich)
Goals: 95
Games: 192
Arjen Robben retired from football at the end of 2018/19, but not before tearing down defensive walls and building a legacy in the colours of Bayern. The flying Dutchman's undefendable angled run off the right-hand side and arced left-footed finish into the far corner was at the heart of his best work, beginning with a 16-goal haul in 2009/10. Robben went one better under Pep Guardiola in 2014/15, and would doubtless have smashed through the 100-Bundesliga-goals barrier had injuries not eaten away at his playing time. Bayern's legendary No.10 signed off with 99 top-flight strikes - 95 of which fell during the 2010s - and ranks as the Bavarian club's second-highest foreign goalscorer of all time behind Lewandowski.
7) Vedad Ibisevic (Hoffenheim, VfB Stuttgart, Hertha Berlin)
Goals: 93
Games: 269
Vedad Ibisevic sowed the seeds for a fruitful goal-scoring yield at Alemannia Aachen, before blossoming into one of German football's hardiest forwards at Hoffenheim. He's had his set-backs, but has still managed to post double figures in six of his 11 top-flight seasons since rupturing knee ligaments in December 2008. He rattled off 18 goals in 17 Hinrunde matches that year; 15 goals in 30 appearances for Stuttgart in 2012/13 is his next best haul. The Bosnian is fourth in the Bundesliga's list of non-German marksmen, and is still going strong at 35, scoring three times during the first half of 2019/20 to take his Bundesliga total in a Hertha jersey to 41 goals in under five seasons in the capital. He has 93 for the decade and 123 overall.
8) Stefan Kießling (Bayer Leverkusen)
Goals: 90
Games: 230
Stefan Kießling's place in Bundesliga folklore is enshrined in more ways than one. The former Germany international spent 15 seasons feasting on goals at Germany's top table, including 131 spread over a storied stint at Bayer Leverkusen that began in 2006. The high-point fell at the end of 2012/13, when the ex-Nuremberg poacher outscored Lewandowski by one to claim his one and only scorer's cannon. He made headlines again the following season when his attempted header in a match against Hoffenheim went in via a hole in the side-netting - and stood. Predating the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) by almost four years, it was arguably the most (in)famous moment of his career.
9) Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Schalke)
Goals: 82
Games: 175
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar was the man Kießling dethroned at the top of the scoring charts. Ably assisted by legendary Spain striker Raul, 'The Hunter' rattled off 29 goals in 32 matches in 2011/12 to become the first Dutchman in history to get his hands on the Torjägerkanone. The former Ajax, AC Milan and Real Madrid frontman registered 43 goals across his next four campaigns as a Schalke player. However, a serious knee injury restricted him to just 16 Bundesliga appearances - and two goals - in his seventh and final season at the club in 2016/17. He returned to Ajax in summer 2017, some 82 goals better off for the experience.
Watch: Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's top five Bundesliga goals
10) Timo Werner (VfB Stuttgart, RB Leipzig)
Goals: 81
Games: 205
Timo Werner was on target when Huntelaar struck for one last time in the Bundesliga back in April 2017. The Germany international was coming to the end of his second season at Leipzig, but fifth in the Bundesliga following a formative stint at Stuttgart. Werner scored his first Bundesliga goals as a 17-year-old, finished the 2015/16 campaign as the division's 21-goal top Germany-born marksman, and became the youngest-ever player to reach 200 top-flight appearances in November 2019, aged 23. He's already on 18 for the current campaign - and 81 since making his debut 44 months and 17 days into the decade. Expect Leipzig's turbo-charged talisman to be right up there when we do this all again in ten years' time...
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