Robert Lewandowski
Robert Lewandowski is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a striker for club Barcelona and captains the Poland national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest strikers of all time, he is one of only five players to have scored 100 goals with three different clubs, ranks third for the all-time top goalscorers in the UEFA Champions League with 107 goals, and ranks third for the all-time European men's top goal scorers in international football. He has scored over 700 senior career goals for club and country.
Beginning his career 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 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. Ahead of the 2014–15 season, Lewandowski joined Dortmund's domestic rivals, Bayern Munich, on a free transfer. In Munich, he won the Bundesliga title in all of his eight seasons at the club and was integral in their Champions League win in 2019–20 as part of a treble. Lewandowski was widely expected to win the 2020 Ballon d'Or, but it was not awarded due to the impact of COVID-19. In 2022, he moved to Barcelona, where he has since won two La Liga titles, the Copa del Rey, and the Pichichi Trophy; his Pichichi Trophy win made him the joint-record holder for most top scorer awards in Europe's top five leagues with eight.
A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned 163 caps, and was a member of their team at the UEFA European Championship in 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024, and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022. Having captained the national team since 2014, he briefly retired in 2025, before returning and being reinstated as captain later the same year. With 88 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland. Lewandowski has been named the Polish Footballer of the Year a record thirteen times and the Polish Sports Personality of the Year three times.
Lewandowski won the Best FIFA Men's Player Award in 2020 and 2021. Further awards include the UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award in 2020, the IFFHS World's Best Player in 2020 and 2021, the European Golden Shoe for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons, and the Gerd Müller Trophy in 2021 and 2022. He was runner-up for the Ballon d'Or in 2021. He is one of the most successful players in Bundesliga and Bayern history, being named the VDV Bundesliga Player of the Season a record five times and winning the Bundesliga Top Scorer Award in a joint-record seven seasons, among other records.
Club career
Early career
Lewandowski was born in Warsaw and grew up in Leszno, Warsaw West County. He took his first steps in football as an unregistered player for the local club, Partyzant Leszno. In 1997, he joined MKS Varsovia Warsaw, where as a teen he played for seven years. The following year he moved to fourth tier side Delta Warsaw, where he finally managed to play in the first team, scoring four goals at the end of the season.In, Lewandowski was the Polish third division's top goalscorer with 15 goals, helping Znicz Pruszków win the promotion. The next season, he was the top scorer in the Polish second highest division with 21 goals.
Lech Poznań
In June 2008, Lech Poznań signed Lewandowski from Znicz for 1.5 million PLN. Earlier that month, Lewandowski's agent Cezary Kucharski offered him to his former team Sporting Gijón, which had been promoted to the La Liga, Spain's first division, after ten years in the Segunda División. However, Gijón rejected him.He debuted for Lech on 17 July 2008 as a substitute in the first qualifying first leg match of the UEFA Cup versus Khazar Lankaran from Azerbaijan, in which he scored the only goal of the evening in the 75th minute at the Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium. During his Ekstraklasa debut in the first game of the season, in a match against GKS Bełchatów, he scored a heel flick goal just four minutes after coming into the game late second half. In his first season in the Polish top division, he was second in the goal-scoring charts. Lewandowski finished the season with 18 goals in 42 matches. He also scored in a 1–1 away draw against Wisła Kraków in the 2009 Polish Super Cup on 27 July, and converted his attempt in the won penalty shoot-out. The next season, he became the top scorer with 18 goals and helped his team win the 2009–10 championship.
English coach, Sam Allardyce, said that Lewandowski was about to join Premier League club Blackburn Rovers in 2010, but the volcanic ash clouds caused by the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull which suspended all flights in and out of the UK, in addition to other financial worries, prevented the potential transfer. Moreover, Lewandowski was also about to join Italian club Genoa, before president Enrico Preziosi decided to cancel the transfer.
Borussia Dortmund
2010–2012: League and cup double
Following press speculation that Lewandowski might move to one of a number of clubs, he joined Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund in June 2010, signing a four-year contract with the German club for a fee reported to be worth around €4.5 million. On 19 September, he scored his first goal in the Bundesliga to make it 3–0 in the Revierderby against Schalke 04; the game ended 3–1.In the 2011–12 Bundesliga campaign, Lewandowski profited from an injury to Lucas Barrios and he was elevated to an ever-present position in the starting XI until the winter break. The striker responded by finding the net two times in Dortmund's 3–0 DFB-Pokal first round victory over Sandhausen. Lewandowski opened his league account in a 2–0 win over Nürnberg on 20 August 2011 by providing the finishing touch from a Mario Götze cross. On 1 October, Lewandowski netted a hat-trick and provided an assist in the club's 4–0 victory over Augsburg, following a disappointing 0–3 loss to Marseille in the UEFA Champions League group stage. He later scored his first Champions League goal in a 1–3 away defeat to Olympiacos on 19 October. Dortmund climbed into second place in the Bundesliga with a comfortable 5–0 victory over Köln on 22 October, with Lewandowski finding the net either side of half-time. Dortmund travelled to Freiburg on 17 December and Lewandowski struck twice and provided an assist for Kevin Großkreutz, as Dortmund eased to a 4–1 triumph, scoring his first hat-trick in Bundesliga. Due to his strong performances, he was named Footballer of the Year in Poland.
Following the winter break, on 22 January 2012, Dortmund thrashed Hamburg 5–1 to move level on points with leaders Bayern Munich; Lewandowski netted twice and added an assist for Jakub Błaszczykowski in the rout. He scored in a 1–0 home win over Bayern Munich on 11 April. The result gave Dortmund a six-point cushion over their title rivals with only four games left to play. On 21 April, Lewandowski provided the assist for Shinji Kagawa's 59th-minute goal as Dortmund won 2–0 over Borussia Mönchengladbach to seal their second straight title. In the final Bundesliga game of the campaign, Lewandowski scored two first-half goals as Dortmund beat Freiburg 4–0 and celebrated lifting the title.
Lewandowski finished the year as the third top goal scorer with 22 goals, none from the penalty spot, and six assists.
On 12 May, in the final game of the season for Dortmund, he scored a hat-trick in the DFB-Pokal Final, a 5–2 win over Bayern Munich, to earn the club its first domestic double. Lewandowski finished as the DFB-Pokal's top goalscorer, with seven goals from six games.
2012–2014: Champions League runner-up and league top goalscorer
On 12 August 2012, Lewandowski began the 2012–13 season by scoring in the 1–2 2012 DFL-Supercup defeat to Bayern Munich. He made his first appearance of the 2012–13 Bundesliga campaign in Dortmund's 2–1 victory over Werder Bremen on the opening day of the season.He netted his first goal in a 3–0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen on 15 September 2012, extending Dortmund's run to 31 games unbeaten and moved the club into third in the Bundesliga. Three days later, in the club's first Champions League game of the season, Lewandowski scored an 87th-minute winner to defeat Ajax, 1–0. He set club's new record of the longest scoring streak, having scored in 12 consecutive league games, surpassing Friedhelm Konietzka's record from 1964–65 season. On 9 February 2013, he opened the scoring in a home match against Hamburg, but was sent off in the 31st minute for a foul on Per Ciljan Skjelbred and Dortmund lost 4–1.
According to Borussia Dortmund director Michael Zorc, speaking in February 2013, Lewandowski would not be renewing his contract with the club, and would leave either in the summer of 2013 or after the 2013–14 season. He finished the season with 24 league goals, one goal short of the Bundesliga's top scorer, Bayer Leverkusen's Stefan Kießling.
On 27 February 2013, Lewandowski played in his side's 1–0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the 2012–13 DFB-Pokal quarter final. On 24 April, Lewandowski became the first player to score four goals in a Champions League semi-final as Borussia Dortmund defeated Spanish champions Real Madrid 4–1 in the first leg at Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park. On 25 May, he played in the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final in which Borussia Dortmund were defeated 1–2 by Bayern Munich.
On 27 July 2013, Lewandowski won the 2013 DFL-Supercup with Dortmund, 4–2, against Bayern Munich. He scored his first goal of the season in Dortmund's 4–0 win over Augsburg in the club's opening Bundesliga match on 10 August. On 1 November, he scored his only hat-trick of the season in a 6–1 Bundesliga win against Stuttgart.
On 25 February 2014, Lewandowski scored twice in the Champions League round of 16 first leg against Zenit Saint Petersburg, becoming Dortmund's overall top scorer in European competition, surpassing Stéphane Chapuisat's 16 goals.
He scored his 100th goal for the club on his 182nd appearance, as Dortmund defeated VfL Wolfsburg 2–0 in the semi-finals of the 2013–14 DFB-Pokal on 15 April, and revealed a shirt with the number 100 during celebration.
Lewandowski ended the 2013–14 season as the top goalscorer in the Bundesliga with 20 goals, which earned him the. He also scored six goals in the Champions League, as Dortmund reached the quarter-finals. During the second leg of the round of 16 match between Borussia Dortmund and Zenit, Lewandowski received a second yellow card, which resulted in his suspension for the first leg of the quarter-final against Real Madrid.
Lewandowski played his final match for Dortmund in the 2014 DFB-Pokal Final against Bayern Munich on 17 May. Head coach Jürgen Klopp had excused him from some training ahead of the final due to injury concerns; although Lewandowski played all 120 minutes of the final, Dortmund lost, 0–2. He finished the season with 28 goals in 48 matches.