Lewandowski eyes toppling own record of 41 Bundesliga goals in a season

By AFP

BERLIN: Having scored a record 41 goals in just 29 league games last season, Bayern Munich star Robert Lewandowski aims to stay injury-free in order to better his own Bundesliga milestone this campaign. 

The Poland striker scooped FIFA’s ‘The Best’ male player award for the second year running on Monday, two days after chalking up his 300th league goal with a hat-trick as Bundesliga leaders Bayern swept aside Cologne.

Lewandowski has scored 23 goals in 19 league games this campaign and featured in every Bundesliga game for Bayern.

Only last May, he finally broke Gerd Mueller’s legendary record of 40 Bundesliga goals in a single season despite missing four games due to injury in April and was rested for one match in October 2020.

The 33-year-old, nicknamed ‘The Body’ by team-mates, is famous for his fitness regime and hopes to stay injury-free in order to play and score in as many games as possible to better his own record.    

“I missed a few games last year through injury, but hopefully I will be able to play 34 (league) games this season and maintain the same level of goals,” Lewandowski told the German Football League (DFL).

He says a record-breaking season happens “once, maybe twice if you are lucky” in a career, “but I am always trying to keep this high level of quality”. 

Bayern’s win in Cologne means the present team set another league record of scoring in their last 66 Bundesliga games and remain on course to win a tenth straight German league title.

Reaching the milestone of 300 Bundesliga goals means Lewandowski is in sight of Gerd Mueller’s all-time record of 365 German league goals.

Despite the astonishing speed with which he chalks up goals, and with another 18 months to go on his current Bayern contract, Lewandowski played down his chances of reaching Mueller’s record.  

“There’s still 65 goals — there is a long way to go before I am even close to this record. It’s too far away,” said Lewandowski.