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 goalscoreraward. 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.[3][4] Lewandowski is also one of only two players to be top goalscorer for club and country in Europe for three consecutive years (2019–21), alongside Cristiano Ronaldo.[5][6] He was widely considered the best player of 2020 and deserving of the Ballon d'Or, until it was canceled.[7][8][9][10]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. He holds the joint-record for most top scorer awards in Europe's top five leagues with eight, alongside Lionel Messi, and the joint-record for the most consecutive with six, alongside Kylian Mbappé.[11]
A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned over 150 caps, and was a member of their team at the UEFA European Championship in 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024, and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022. With 84 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland and the fourth overall men's international goalscorer in Europe, only behind Cristiano Ronaldo (133), Romelu Lukaku(85) and Ferenc Puskás (84).[12] 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 Playerin 2020 and 2021 and the European Golden Shoefor 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.[13] Moreover, he has won the Bundesliga Top Scorer Award in a joint-record seven seasons, alongside Gerd Müller, five of which were won consecutively, another record. He most prominently won it 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.[14]He also holds the record for most consecutive UEFA Champions League match wins, with 22.[15]On 30 November 2021, he finished second in the Ballon d'Or, 33 points behind the winner Lionel Messi.
Early career
"When I was six, I remember Roberto Baggio at the 1994 World Cup. When I was between 10 and 14, Alessandro Del Piero was the best player for me. Then my idol was Thierry Henry. He was amazing – it wasn't just how he scored the goals but what he did for the team."
—Lewandowski on his childhood role models[16]
Lewandowski was born in Warsaw[17] and grew up in Leszno, Warsaw West County.[18] He took his first steps in football as an unregistered player for the local club, Partyzant Leszno.[19] In 1997, he joined MKS Varsovia Warsaw, where as a teen he played for seven years.[20] The following year he moved to fourth tier side Delta Warsaw, where he finally managed to play in the first team, scoring four goals at the end of the season.[21]
In 2006–07 [pl], Lewandowski was the Polish third division's top goalscorer with 15 goals, helping Znicz Pruszków win the promotion.[22] The next season, he was the top scorer in the Polish second highest division with 21 goals.[22]
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