It was one of those moments where the crowd literally leapt to its feet: Robert Lewandowski delicately flicked the ball over his marker before crashing home a volley to open the scoring after 15 minutes of Saturday’s meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt. It was a brilliant goal, and to the delight of the Munich fans, the Pole is putting them away with great regularity at the moment.
“I’m happy and just need to keep on scoring,” Lewandowski calmly remarked after the 3-0 victory, in which the former Dortmund man headed the second on 66 minutes to complete his fourth Bundesliga brace for FCB. The 26-year-old has now scored 16 goals in 25 league games, including an excellent nine in the last eight matches.
“Robert’s strike rate in the games since Christmas has been good,” commented chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, “I hope he can keep it up. We’re very pleased with him. He’s a superb player and that’s why he’s at Bayern.” Philipp Lahm is just as impressed: “Robert is very active, he holds up the ball and scores goals too. He’s always been important for the team and he’ll continue to be.”
Müller, provider and scorer
“As we approach the decisive phase of the season, we have the best possible Lewandowski. That’s important,” added Pep Guardiola. The centre-forward himself is aiming for “at least 20 goals” this term. Rummenigge feels he could end up as the league’s top scorer: “He’s three goals behind Alexander Meier. If he keeps it up, he has a chance of retaining the top scorer trophy from last season in his first year here.”
Bayern can also always rely on Thomas Müller. The FCB youth product scored the third goal on 82 minutes from a truly unlikely angle, taking him onto 13 for the season and equalling his own personal best. The World Cup winner has been involved in six of his side’s last eight Bundesliga goals with three strikes and three assists, and in the Frankfurt encounter turned provider for the tenth time this term. Müller has supplied the assist for no fewer than three of Lewandowski’s last five goals.
The pair are now hoping for more of the same at Porto. “We’ll go there with plenty of confidence knowing we can rely on this team,” said the 25-year-old. “I’m not thinking we’ll win 5-0, because it’ll be a tight game. We need to make sure we come home with a good result.” As Lewandowski said: “The best thing to do would be to avoid errors.”
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