Lewandowski at the table with Cristiano and Messi | Football | Sport

Sergio Aguero asked Lionel Messi what he needs to do to win the Ballon d’Or.Do you have “We must win the Champions League.” Kuhn never achieved this. He had already retired from football when City were crowned in Istanbul in 2023. He was (unlucky) to match Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Same as Robert Lewandowski. And the Pole managed to raise Orejon in 2020. But due to the pandemic, the gala concert did not take place that year. France Football. A year later, when it resumed, the award once again went to Messi in the form of a stunned Lewandowski. Of course, at 36 years old, the Polish forward is no longer a contender for the Ballon d’Or. In any case, he achieved a reward that was as invisible as it was objective: with his brace on Tuesday against Brest, he scored 101 league goals. League and became the third player to break the 100-goal barrier in the Champions League. He sat no more and no less than at the table of Cristiano Ronaldo (140) and Lionel Messi (129).

“I’m very happy, I have a good figure. “A few years ago I didn’t think I could score more than 100 goals in the Champions League,” Lewandowski said. Dani Olmo joined in toasting number 9. “I want to congratulate Robert on scoring 101 goals and continuing to improve. This is a huge number,” said number 20. To reach the figure of 140 goals, Cristiano needed 180 games (0.77). Messi, in turn, has a slightly higher scoring average than the Portuguese: 129 goals in 163 games (0.79). Lewandowski has the best ratio of the three – 101 out of 125 (0.81). The Pole also needed the fewest shots: 451 shots compared to the Argentine’s 527 and the Portuguese’s 793.

“The team helps him score these goals. Obviously he knows he has to score and plays for it, but what the team is doing is just wonderful,” said Hansi Flick, who has already met the Pole at Bayern Munich. And number 9 did not want to contradict his coach. Accustomed to looking only at his own statistics, Lewandowski recognized the work of his teammates. “The most important thing for me is to help the team and offer solutions. We played as a team today,” he said. In any case, he recalled Barcelona’s recent failures in the league against Real Madrid and Celta Vigo: “Sometimes we lack patience, we are slow, but when we have it, we score. These are three very good points. After qualifying, we didn’t play very well in the League. There are a lot of games, the main thing is patience,” Lewandowski said.

“We could have scored more, but I’m happy because after Vigo showed a performance like that, it’s great. We dominated the game over our opponents. We defended well and attacked well. Over a long season, unexpected things happen. But in the long term, the main thing is to be able to return,” concluded Flick. Barcelona is rebuilding its game and its goals in Europe. Nobody celebrates this more than Lewandowski.

A contemporary of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Pole could only qualify for the Silver Ball in 2021. No one can take away from him, in any case, the fact that he became one of the greatest goalscorers in European history. His statistics protect him.