Robert Lewandowski

Robert Lewandowski
Lewandowski with Bayern Munich in 2019
Personal information
Full name Robert Lewandowski[1]
Date of birth (1988-08-21) 21 August 1988 (age 35)[2]
Place of birth Warsaw, Poland
Height 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)[3]
Position(s) Striker
Team information
Current team
Barcelona
Number 9
Youth career
1996–1997 Partyzant Leszno
1997–2005 MKS Varsovia Warsaw
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2005 Delta Warsaw 17 (4)
2005–2006 Legia Warsaw II 13 (2)
2006 Znicz Pruszków II 2 (6)
2006–2008 Znicz Pruszków 59 (36)
2008–2010 Lech Poznań 58 (32)
2010–2014 Borussia Dortmund 131 (74)
2014–2022 Bayern Munich 253 (238)
2022– Barcelona 66 (40)
International career
2007 Poland U19 1 (0)
2008 Poland U21 3 (0)
2008– Poland 148 (82)

Signature
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 23:00, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 26 March 2024

Robert Lewandowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈrɔbɛrt lɛvanˈdɔfskʲi] ; born 21 August 1988) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a striker for La Liga club Barcelona and captains the Poland national team. He is regarded as one of the best players of his generation and as one of the best strikers of all time, as well as one of the most successful players in Bundesliga and Bayern Munich history. He has scored over 600 senior career goals for club and country.

After being the top scorer in the third and second tiers of Polish football with Znicz Pruszków, Lewandowski moved to top-flight Lech Poznań, helping the team win the 2009–10 Ekstraklasa. In 2010, he transferred to Borussia Dortmund, where he won honors including two consecutive Bundesliga titles and the league's top goalscorer award. In 2013, he also featured with Dortmund in the 2013 UEFA Champions League final. Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season, Lewandowski agreed to join Dortmund's domestic rivals, Bayern Munich, on a free transfer. In Munich, he won the Bundesliga title in every one of his eight seasons. Lewandowski was integral in Bayern's UEFA Champions League win in 2019–20 as part of a treble. He is one of only two players, alongside Johan Cruyff, to achieve the European treble while being the highest goalscorer in all three competitions, and the first to do it as the sole top scorer.[4][5] Lewandowski is also one of only two players to be top goalscorer for club and country in Europe for three consecutive years (2019–21), alongside Cristiano Ronaldo.[6][7] He was widely considered the best player of 2020 and deserving of the Ballon d'Or, until it was canceled.[8][9][10][11] In 2022, he was signed by Barcelona, where he won the Supercopa de España, the La Liga title and the Pichichi Trophy in his debut season. He holds the joint-record for most top scorer awards in Europe's top five leagues with eight, alongside Lionel Messi, and the record for the most consecutive with six.[12]

A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned 148 caps and was a member of their team at the UEFA European Championship in 2012, 2016, and 2020, and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022. With 82 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland and the fourth overall men's international goalscorer in Europe, only behind Romelu Lukaku (83), Ferenc Puskás (84) and Cristiano Ronaldo (128).[13] He won IFFHS World's Best International Goal Scorer Award in 2015 and 2021, IFFHS World's Best Top Goal Scorer Award in 2020 and 2021, and IFFHS World's Best Top Division Goal Scorer Award in 2021. He also won the IFFHS World's Best Player in 2020 and 2021 and the European Golden Shoe for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons. Lewandowski has been named the Polish Footballer of the Year a record eleven times and the Polish Sports Personality of the Year three times. Moreover, he has won the Gerd Müller Trophy twice, in 2021 and 2022.

In 2020, Lewandowski won the Best FIFA Men's Player Award (retained in 2021) and the UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award. He has been named to the UEFA Team of the Year twice. He is the third-highest goalscorer in the history of the Champions League. Lewandowski has been named the VDV Bundesliga Player of the Season a record five times. He has scored over 300 goals in the Bundesliga (second-highest goalscorer of all time in Bundesliga, only behind Gerd Müller's 365 Bundesliga goals), having reached the century mark quicker than any other foreign player, and is the league's all-time leading foreign goalscorer. In 2015, while playing for Bayern, he scored five goals in less than nine minutes against VfL Wolfsburg, the fastest by any player in Bundesliga history as well as any major European football league for which he was awarded four Guinness World Records.[14] Moreover, he has won the Bundesliga Top Scorer Award in a joint-record seven seasons, alongside Gerd Müller, five of which were won consecutively, another record. He most prominently won it in the 2020–21 Bundesliga where he scored 41 goals in a single campaign, breaking Gerd Müller's previous Bundesliga record of 40 goals, set in 1971–72.[15] He also holds the record for most consecutive UEFA Champions League match wins, with 22.[16] On 30 November 2021, he finished second in the Ballon d'Or, 33 points behind the winner Lionel Messi.

  1. ^ "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™: List of Players: Poland" (PDF). FIFA. 15 November 2022. p. 21. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 December 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  2. ^ "Robert Lewandowski". ESPN. Archived from the original on 9 April 2020. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Robert Lewandowski". FC Barcelona. Archived from the original on 23 February 2023. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  4. ^ "Lewandowski claims his own personal treble". FC Bayern Munich. 24 August 2020. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  5. ^ Kappel, David (24 August 2020). "Robert Lewandowski First To Win Treble & End Up As Top Goalscorers In All Competitions". Soccer Laduma. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  6. ^ "Lewandowski, Mbappé, Ronaldo: Who was the top scorer in 2021?". UEFA.com. 30 December 2021. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  7. ^ Shukla, Rajarshi (9 January 2023). "Who has been the top scorer each year since turn of the millennium?". Khel Now. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  8. ^ Burton, Chris (25 August 2020). "'Lewandowski's the best player in the world' – Bayern legend Matthaus salutes Champions League heroes". Goal.com. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  9. ^ "9 moments that show why Robert Lewandowski was the best footballer in the world in 2020". FC Bayern Munich. 4 December 2020. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
  10. ^ "PSG's Lionel Messi: Robert Lewandowski deserved to win 2020 Ballon d'Or award". ESPN. 30 November 2021. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
  11. ^ Andrews, Connor (1 December 2021). "Robert Lewandowski was cruelly robbed of 2020 Ballon d'Or and striker's 2021 stats are far better than Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who praised him". talkSPORT. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
  12. ^ Gajdek, Michał (17 July 2023). "Sport: Rekordowe wyzwanie Roberta Lewandowskiego". FCBarca.com (in Polish). Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  13. ^ "Europe's top international scorers: Cristiano Ronaldo out in front". www.uefa.com. 13 June 2022. Archived from the original on 14 July 2022. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
  14. ^ "Robert Lewandowski receives awards for five-goal feat". BBC Sport. 1 December 2015. Archived from the original on 21 January 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2022.
  15. ^ "How Robert Lewandowski broke Gerd Müller's 40-goal Bundesliga record". Bundesliga. Archived from the original on 30 October 2021. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  16. ^ "RECORD WINNING SERIE ENDED!". IFFHS. 18 February 2022. Retrieved 23 January 2024.

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