It’s now 40. With his goal against Copenhagen, Robert Lewandowski has become the player to have scored against the greatest number of different opponents in the history of the UEFA Champions League, level with a Barça legend: Leo Messi. The Polish striker, now 37, shows no signs of slowing down in Europe’s premier competition, as he once again demonstrated against the side from the Danish capital.

14 years of goals 

Lewandowski’s love affair with goals in the Champions League began more than 14 years ago. On 19 October 2011, the forward scored his first goal in the competition, against Olympiacos, while wearing the Borussia Dortmund shirt. That was the first of the 107 goals the Barça No. 9 has now amassed in the competition.

Since that first goal, the Pole has gone on to wear two more shirts: Bayern Munich’s (2014–2022) and FC Barcelona’s (since 2022). With all three teams, he has consistently shown his scoring prowess. In fact, with the Bavarians he was the top scorer in the 2019/20 season, netting 15 goals and lifting the Champions League trophy.

The opponents 

The full list of teams and the number of goals he has scored against them is as follows: Benfica (9), Red Star Belgrade (7), Salzburg (6), Real Madrid (6), Dinamo Zagreb (5), Ajax (5), Olympiacos (5), Barça (4), Arsenal (4), Viktoria Plzeň (3), PSV (3), AEK Athens (3), Dynamo Kyiv (3), Chelsea (3), Marseille (3), Tottenham Hotspur (2), Young Boys (2), Brest (2), Anderlecht (2), Zenit (2), Lazio (2), Beşiktaş (2), Borussia Dortmund (2), Inter (2), Napoli (2), Porto (2), Atlético Madrid (2), Shakhtar Donetsk (2), Slavia Prague (1), Olympique Lyonnais (1), Antwerp (1), Villarreal (1), Rostov (1), Juventus (1), Málaga (1), Roma (1), Manchester City (1), Bayern Munich (1), Paris Saint-Germain (1) and Copenhagen (1).

In addition, he now has 21 goals for FC Barcelona in the Champions League, a tally that makes him the club’s joint fourth-highest scorer in the competition, alongside Neymar and Patrick Kluivert. The top three in this ranking are Leo Messi (120), Rivaldo (25) and Luis Suárez (25).

Lewandowski’s hunger is insatiable. It has seen him draw level with Leo Messi, the greatest footballer in history. Moreover, last week, in the match against Slavia Prague, he became the sixth-oldest goalscorer in Champions League history.

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