Champions League: Lewandowski has world at his feet

26Apr 2013

Bajnokok Ligája

After Robert Lewandowski's incredible virtuoso display sinks Real Madrid, Christian Crowther assesses the hottest number nine on the planet...

It's not often that someone scores a hat-trick against Real Madrid in the Champions League. Well, not ever in fact, until Wednesday night that is.

Borussia Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski let the handbrake off in spectacular style, firing in a hat-trick before smashing in a fourth from the spot to cap off one of the most unforgettable number nine performances in recent memory.

Ruud Gullit in the Sky Sports studio could hardly contain his excitement over the hat-trick goal in his analysis. That's hardly surprising given that the Pole displayed extraordinarily nifty footwork before unleashing a thunderbolt into the roof of the net.

Incidentally, those four goals now move Lewandowski within two of current Champions League top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo, with the former 5.2 to overhaul Ronny, who is available at 1.23.

It is worth noting that Real Madrid's superstar has notched ten in his last ten appearances at the Bernabeu, though Dortmund's ace has scored five in eight appearances against Bayern Munich - including a hat-trick in last season's German Cup final - should they meet in the final.

After such a dynamic first-leg showing from Jurgen Klopp's young team - average age just 23 against Madrid - their price of 1.2 to qualify for Wembley seems fairly safe and their odds of 3.15 for glory even more tempting.

So what comes next for Dortmund's destroyer? If the papers are to believed, he could well be heading the same way as his outgoing teammate Mario Gotze to Dortmund's biggest rivals Bayern Munich.

Unfortunately for Dortmund, Lewandowski comes to the end of his current contract in 2014 and, after a performance of such magnitude, the striker's agent will surely be dreaming of what super yacht he'll be ordering off the back of a summer move.

The player himself has refused to put pen to paper with his current club and right now, he could pick anywhere on the planet.

The centre forward has been linked with Manchester United in recent seasons, but rumours in Germany suggest that the red of Bayern is his preference.

After losing Gotze to Bayern's advances, this would represent a real hammer blow for Dortmund, though we've already seen how capable Klopp's powers of rebuilding are after they lost Nuri Sahin and Shinji Kagawa in the previous two pre-seasons.