Goalendowski First to 40

With his latest Champions League performance, Robert Lewandowski may have finally supplanted Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the world’s top scoring threat.

On Tuesday, Lewandowski recorded a hat-trick in the first 23 minutes of Bayern Munich’s 7-1 thrashing of RB Salzberg — the fastest hat-trick from the start of a match in Champions League history. Bayern advanced to the UCL quarter-finals on an 8-2 aggregate score.

The 33-year-old’s ruthlessly efficient treble has him flirting with history.

• Only 11 minutes separated the first goal from the last — the fastest hat-trick in a UCL knockout match and tied for third-fastest in UCL history.
• Lewandowski broke his own personal best after scoring a treble in 12 minutes in a 2019 group-stage match.
• He’s the first to score 40 goals across all competitions this season, his seventh consecutive season hitting that mark — third all-time behind Messi (10) and Ronaldo (8).

Lewandowski makes an estimated $20 million in salary from a 2019 extension that should keep him in Munich until 2023. He added an additional $14 million in incentives and endorsements in 2021.

Since signing the Polish international on a free transfer from Borussia Dortmund in 2014, Bayern have won the Bundesliga title every year since and took home the Champions League crown in 2020.

The German giants are currently the third-favorites (+400*) to win this year’s edition behind Manchester City (+225*) and Liverpool (+350*).