When it comes to all-time Champions League goals, the race for third place is off and running with a Robert Lewandowski hat trick.
In his first Champions League match for Barcelona on Wednesday, Lewandowski scored his 87th, 88th and 89th career goals in the competition, breaking a tie for third place on the all-time goalscoring list with Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema (86 goals). He becomes the first player to score Champions League hat tricks for three different clubs (Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Barcelona).
After fellow summer arrival Franck Kessié opened the scoring against Viktoria Plzeň in the 13th minute, Lewandowski doubled Barcelona’s lead in the 34th minute. The Polish international took a pass at the edge of the penalty area, faked a shot to buy himself space and ripped a shot into the bottom corner for the goal.
The €45 million transfer from Bayern Munich then added a second at the stroke of halftime. Three minutes into first-half stoppage time, Lewandowski found himself wide open for the back-post header after Ousmane Dembélé did the defensive work to set up and then deliver the chance.
The star forward completed his hat trick in the 67th minute when he completed a beautiful sequence set up by Ferran Torres, who chested the ball down and passed off to Lewandowski for the accurate finish from 20 yards.
Lewandowski may have a chance to put some more distance between him and Benzema after the French forward suffered a quad injury against Celtic on Tuesday that is expected to see him miss much of the next month. Benzema, who is likely to win the Ballon d’Or this year, led the Champions League in scoring last season with 15 goals.
Still, both prolific strikers have a long way to go before reaching Cristiano Ronaldo (140 goals) and Lionel Messi (125 goals) for the all-time Champions League lead.
