In 2015 Robert Lewandowski came on against Wolfsburg and scored 5 goals in 9 minutes. It is still the best substitute performance the game has seen, and it was a fair preview of what Bayern Munich had bought.
The Polish striker went on to break records at Bayern that most people assumed would stand indefinitely.
Breaking Müller's mark
The biggest was Gerd Müller's. In 2020-21 Lewandowski scored 41 Bundesliga goals in a single season, beating a record that had stood for 49 years. Many had called it unbreakable. He made it look routine.
He was Bayern's main striker through 8 consecutive Bundesliga titles, and in 2020 he won the Champions League with them. That year he was widely considered the best player in the world. FIFA named him its Best Men's Player in 2020 and again in 2021, recognition he had waited a long time for.
He is the greatest striker in Bundesliga history and one of the heaviest scorers anywhere in European football. Machine is the usual word for him, and for once it is accurate.
Tomorrow: number 24.
