ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI
World Player of the Year
Of all the elite players to have been overshadowed by the astonishing achievements of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the last decade, few have remained as consistently prolific as Robert Lewandowski. He may have had to wait until beyond his 30th birthday, but the Poland marksman has now moved out of that shadow and established himself as the world’s best centre-forward.
In 2020, he was rewarded for spearheading Bayern’s treble-winning outfit, recognised as the best player in the best team; the outstanding cog in an incredible machine. This year though, it’s been all about him. Other than their entirely predictable retention of the Bundesliga crown, the Bavarians failed to hit the heights of the previous season, and in doing so they proved just how much they rely on Lewandowski.
They missed him badly in the Champions League quarter-final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, when a rare knee injury ruled him out of both legs.
It is also hard to imagine that Bayern would have suffered their shock secondround exit from the 2020-21 German Cup to Holsten Kiel if their talismanic striker had started the match.
The sheer volume of goals that he scored was frightening. Gerd Muller’s record of 40 in one Bundesliga campaign had stood for almost 50 years before last season; not only did Lewandowski break the record, he did so having played five fewer games. Indeed, last season was the first time that the Pole had
played fewer than 30 league games since he arrived in Germany back in 2010. That didn’t stop him from producing his most prolific campaign, winning the first Golden Shoe of his career in the process.
There were plenty of other records that Lewandowski sent tumbling along the way, too. He scored in 13 consecutive home league games, a Bundesligarecord streak that included 24 goals; he broke a Bayern record by scoring in 19 consecutive games in all competitions, a run that ended in October; he won his fourth Bundesliga Golden Boot in a row, and sixth in total, moving within one of another of Muller’s all-time records; and he surpassed Klaus Fischer on the league’s list of all-time top scorers to move into second place – again, behind Muller.
After 12 games of the current campaign, Lewandowski had already scored 14 Bundesliga goals, taking his overall tally to 291. Muller is on 365, while the Germany legend also leads in the Bayern record books, with 563 goals to Lewandowski’s 319.
Lewandowski turned 33 in August and, usually, it would be fair to assume that time is running out for him to catch Muller. But his exploits over the last couple of years have forced us to reconsider what a player’s peak years should be.
“It’s how football is now,” said his former manager Jurgen Klopp recently. “33, 34 – that’s the best age of a footballer: you understand the game better, you can judge the pitch better, you can see situations long before they will happen.”
Ronaldo and Messi continuing to score goals well into their 30s could be explained as part of their usual convention-defying excellence, but the Bayern man’s form hints at a wider trend. The likes of Neymar, Mohamed Salah and Harry Kane, who are all approaching their 30th birthdays, will be taking note: their best years may yet be ahead of them.
“Age is only a number and, with my experience and preparation, I know I can play on at the top level for a few years longer,” said Lewandowski recently, after collecting the Golden Shoe trophy. “Maybe, like wine, I can grow even better with age.”
Bayern certainly hope so, as do Poland. Lewandowski scored three goals for his country at Euro 2020
– his best-ever return at a major tournament – but it wasn’t enough for them to advance from the group.
Even with his ability to defy the ageing process, Qatar 2022 may be his last opportunity to play at a World Cup. He has done everything within his power to get there: Poland lost two games in qualifying – 2-1 defeats to England and Hungary – the only two games in which the captain did not play. He had a hand in more than a third of their total goals, scoring eight and assisting another four. When they face Russia in the play-offs in March, they will need him to deliver once again.
Getting to Qatar, and then reaching the knockout stages, will be among the top of his targets for 2022, as will reclaiming Bayern’s European crown. The evidence of this year shows that, as long as he’s playing, both teams have every chance of achieving their goals.
And if he does tick off all of those objectives? This time next year, we’ll probably be discussing the first player to win this award three times in a row.
“Age is only a number...I know I can play on at the top level for a few years longer. Maybe, like wine, I can grow even better with age”
Robert Lewandowski