Robert Lewandowski

Robert Lewandowski (Polish pronunciation: ⓘ; born 21 August 1988) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a striker for La Liga club Barcelona and captains the Poland national team. He is regarded as one of the best strikers of all time, as well as one of the most successful players in Bundesliga and Bayern Munich history. He has scored over 600 senior career goals for club and country. After being the top scorer 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 honors including 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. Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season, Lewandowski agreed to join Dortmund's domestic rivals, Bayern Munich, on a free transfer. In Munich, he won the Bundesliga title in every one of his eight seasons. Lewandowski was integral in Bayern's UEFA Champions League win in 2019–20 as part of a treble. He is one of only two players, alongside Johan Cruyff, to achieve the European treble while being the highest goalscorer in all three competitions, and the first to do it as the sole top scorer. He was widely considered the best player of 2020 and deserving of the Ballon d'Or, until it was canceled. In 2022, he was signed by Barcelona, where he won the Supercopa de España, the La Liga title and the Pichichi Trophy in his debut season. A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned 145 caps and was a member of their team at the UEFA European Championship in 2012, 2016, and 2020, and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022. With 82 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland and the third overall men's international goalscorer in Europe, only behind Ferenc Puskás (84) and Cristiano Ronaldo (123). He won IFFHS World's Best International Goal Scorer Award in 2015 and 2021, IFFHS World's Best Top Goal Scorer Award in 2020 and 2021, and IFFHS World's Best Top Division Goal Scorer Award in 2021. He also won the IFFHS World's Best Player in 2020 and 2021 and the European Golden Shoe for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons. Lewandowski has been named the Polish Footballer of the Year a record eleven times and the Polish Sports Personality of the Year three times. Moreover, he has won the Gerd Müller Trophy twice, in 2021 and 2022. In 2020, Lewandowski won the Best FIFA Men's Player Award (retained in 2021) and the UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award. He has been named to the UEFA Team of the Year twice. He is the third-highest goalscorer in the history of the Champions League. Lewandowski has been named the VDV Bundesliga Player of the Season a record five times. He has scored over 300 goals in the Bundesliga (second-highest goalscorer of all time in Bundesliga, only behind Gerd Müller's 365 Bundesliga goals), having reached the century mark quicker than any other foreign player, and is the league's all-time leading foreign goalscorer. In 2015, while playing for Bayern, he scored five goals in less than nine minutes against VfL Wolfsburg, the fastest by any player in Bundesliga history as well as any major European football league for which he was awarded four Guinness World Records. Moreover, he has won the Bundesliga Top Scorer Award in seven seasons, most prominently in the 2020–21 Bundesliga where he scored 41 goals in a single campaign, breaking Gerd Müller's previous Bundesliga record of 40 goals, set in 1971–72. On 30 November 2021, he finished second in the Ballon d'Or, just 33 points behind the winner Lionel Messi. Lewandowski's father gave him the name Robert to make it easier for him when moving abroad as a professional footballer. Lewandowski's father, Krzysztof (died in 2005), was a Polish judo champion, and also played football for Hutnik Warsaw in the second division. His mother, Iwona, is a former volleyball player for AZS Warsaw and later vice-president of Partyzant Leszno. His sister, Milena, also plays volleyball and has represented the U21 national team. His wife, Anna Lewandowska, won the bronze medal at the 2009 Karate World Cup. They married on 22 June 2013 in the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Serock. They have two daughters: Klara (born 2017) and Laura (born 2020). Lewandowski is a practising Catholic. He met Pope Francis in October 2014, when Bayern Munich visited Vatican City following a 7–1 win over A.S. Roma in the UEFA Champions League. In October 2017, the day after scoring to help Poland qualify for the 2018 World Cup, Lewandowski finished his Bachelor of Physical Education (BPhEd) with coaching and management at the Academy of Sport Education in Warsaw, concluding a decade of studies. In the same year, he bought a luxury apartment in Złota 44 in Warsaw. In addition to his native Polish, Lewandowski also speaks English and German. Lewandowski is a fan of tennis and paddle tennis. He practiced playing tennis with Ana Ivanovic, the wife of his friend Bastian Schweinsteiger and knows personally Novak Djokovic. He attended his matches in Qatar and United Arab Emirates. In 2022, he personally congratulated Iga Świątek on winning the 2022 Roland Garros. He also plays golf and is interested in motor sports, including Formula One. In 2017 and 2022 as Aston Martin special guest, he attended the Monaco Grand Prix. In 2023, he visited the paddock of Scuderia Ferrari during the Spanish Grand Prix.