Robert Lewandowski faces Real Madrid for the ninth time on Sunday – the first time with a non-Bundesliga club. One match against the royals will stay in his memory forever.
Sunday afternoon will also be a very special one for Robert Lewandowski, as the Pole plays his first Clasico. He has hit the ground running at FC Barcelona, scoring nine times in eight league games and five times in four Champions League matches. So he’s in great form going into his first clash with the Catalans against Real Madrid.
The 34-year-old goal-scorer is already familiar with games against the Royals, however. The Pole has faced Real eight times in the top flight, winning three, drawing two and losing three. Interestingly, he lost only one of five duels with Dortmund (three wins, one draw), but was unable to win a game with FC Bayern against Real.
In total, he has scored six goals against Real so far – four of them in the legendary Champions League semi-final first leg in 2013. Lewandowski will certainly never forget that night. The attacker scored all of his team’s goals in the 4:1 win at home in the Signal-Iduna-Park, meaning that he single-handedly dispatched the Blancos. “It was a great game, and what goals ‘Lewy’ scored…. The third one, I’ve never seen anything like it,” BVB coach Jürgen Klopp marvelled at the time, among other things, at the striker’s extremely fluid movement, including his powerful finish.
“I’m happy about the four goals, now we want to reach the final,” Lewandowski said at the time. And he succeeded. Despite a 2-0 defeat in the second leg, BVB advanced to the final, where Bayern narrowly won 2-1.
Lewandowski has only scored once at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu so far: in the 2:4 quarter-final second leg of the Champions League in the 2016/17 season with Bayern on a penalty kick. The Pole will certainly want to improve on that statistic on Sunday.
Lewandowski’s duels with Real at a glance
24 October 2012: Dortmund – Real 2:1 (CL preliminary round, first leg)
6 November 2012: Real – Dortmund 2:2 (CL preliminary round, second leg)
24 April 2013: Dortmund Real 4:1 (CL semi-final, first leg)
30 April 2013: Real Dortmund 2:0 (CL semi-final, second leg)
8 April 2014: Dortmund – Real 2:0 (CL quarter-final, second leg)
18 April 2017: Real – Bayern 4:2 (CL quarter-final, second leg)
25 April 2018: Bayern – Real 1:2 (CL semi-final, first leg)
1 May 2018: Real – Bayern 2:2 (CL semi-final, second leg)