9781422270752

WORLD CLASS FOOTBALLERS SOCCER’S BEST PLAYERS

CRISTIANO RONALDO

ERLING HAALAND

KYLIAN MBAPPÉ

LIONEL MESSI

ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI

WORLD CLASS FOOTBALLERS SOCCER’S BEST PLAYERS

GREG BACH

MIAMI

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the publisher. First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4745-7 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-4750-1 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7075-2 Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress Developed and Produced by National Highlights, Inc. Editor: Andrew Luke Cover and Interior Design: Priceless Digital Media, LLC Production: Crafted Content, LLC (www.craftedcontentllc.com)

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Chapter 1: Greatest Moments................................................7 Chapter 2: Club Dreams......................................................21 Chapter 3: National Pride....................................................35 Chapter 4: Words Count......................................................47 Chapter 5: Off the Pitch.......................................................63 Series Glossary of Key Terms...............................................76 Further Reading & Internet Resources.................................77 Index................................................................................. 78 Author Biography & Credits.................................................80 CONTENTS

KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more!

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there.

Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

delirium: passion; hysteria; frenzy propensity: habit; tendency; penchant realm: an area or territory; a field or domain of activity or interest slew: a large number or quantity of something

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski

CHAPTER 1

Greatest Moments

SPECTACULAR STRIKER Robert Lewandowski has emerged as one of the most feared strikers on the planet today, operating with a brilliant blend of force and finesse while producing hard-to-believe numbers that have wreaked havoc with the record books. Having scored goals galore in the Bundesliga (Germany’s top league and one of the world’s best), he is poised to do the same with Barcelona in Spain’s lauded La Liga. He has also ignited an international return to relevance while captaining Poland’s national team, thriving as one of the genuine greats gracing the game today. Whether it was stepping on the pitch for Borussia Dortmund in 2010, joining Bayern Munich in 2014, or playing with Barcelona since the summer of 2022, Lewandowski has been resilient, resourceful, and a fierce and fantastic finisher. The do-it-all striker blitzed the Bundesliga with a barrage of glorious goals, scoring 20 or more times

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Greatest Moments

in 10 of his dozen seasons. A major menace for goalkeepers and a huge headache for defenders, Lewandowski ranks second all-time in the Bundesliga with 312 tallies, and Barca fans can’t wait to watch him inflict similar damage in La Liga. He erupted for a league-record 41 goals during the 2020–2021 season, and he has been a model of stunning consistency, as his 35 goals in 34 matches in 2021–2022 earned him his fifth straight league scoring title and his whopping seventh overall. HAVOC MAKER A masterful mover and terrific tactician, Lewandowski is outstanding at initiating attacks all over the pitch, and attempts at moving him off the ball border on the impossible. Making him doubly dangerous— but exciting and entertaining for fans to watch—he is also supremely talented without the ball at his feet. He exploits weaknesses in defensive formations, sabotages strategies devised to corral him, and creates space for receiving passes that he often flips into wonderful scoring opportunities. Taking over as captain of the Polish national team in 2013, Lewandowski sparked a resurgence that has pulled them back into the World Cup conversation after enduring a lengthy drought of qualifying round heartbreak. He struck 16 times during an epic scoring spree over 10 qualifying matches leading up to the 2018 World Cup, and he delivered the decisive goal against Sweden to propel Poland into the draw of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. An eleven-time recipient of the Polish Footballer of the Year award, he is his country’s all-time leading scorer and unquestionably its greatest player of all time. A husband and dad of two with a massive social media following and a diversity of interests away from the pitch, he is one of the sport’s most fascinating figures. With a stack of stunning numbers that he keeps adding to, the Barcelona forward is indisputably one of the best in the game.

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski

GREATEST MOMENTS

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Greatest Moments

FLURRY OF FIVE Scoring five goals in a game is a monumental effort for any soccer player at any level, but Robert Lewandowski stepped into the realm of the ridiculous when he struck five times—in nine minutes!—during an epic explosion in 2015. Well-rested after spending the first half on the bench in a match for Bayern Munich against Wolfsburg, he was inserted into the line-up for the second half of the game as his club was trailing 1–0, and he went right to work. Six minutes after stepping foot on the pitch, Lewandowski netted his first goal. Two more tallies quickly followed for a hat trick in a stunning four-minute flurry to become the fastest to record a hat trick in the illustrious history of the Bundesliga. Not content with his trio of tallies, he scored again in the 57th minute and punctuated his fantastic feat three minutes later with a beautiful scissor-kick goal for his fifth of the match.

Robert Lewandowski scored five goals in nine minutes against Wolfsburg in 2015.

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski

FABULOUS 41 It took Robert Lewandowski just 31 minutes to score his first goal in the opening match of the 2020–2021 Bundesliga season against Schalke 04 in mid-September, and that was just the start of a slew of spectacular shot-making that would torment goalkeepers throughout the league in the months to follow. By the time the Bayern Munich striker entered the final match of the season against Augsburg in May, he had scored a hefty 40 goals, tied for best-ever in the league with former Bayern star Gerd Müller, who hit that mark back in 1971–1972. Demonstrating his flair for the dramatic, Lewandowski pounced on a loose rebound in the 90th minute of that final match and slipped the ball into the net for record-making No. 41 to put an exclamation point on a season of sensational production never seen before in the Bundesliga. It also marked the fourth straight season he led the league in scoring.

Robert Lewandowski scored a record 41 goals in the Bundesliga during the 2020–2021 season.

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Greatest Moments

TWICE IS NICE Robert Lewandowski’s propensity for scoring goals in bunches has led to quite an impressive collection of shiny awards to display in his ever growing trophy case. Most notably, he scooped up his second straight European Golden Shoe award in 2022. The prestigious honor recognizes the continent’s top scorer in all club leagues, and Lewandowski has been in contention regularly, causing heaps of problems for defenders and nightmares for goalkeepers. Riding the momentum of his history-making 41-goal season in 2020–2021 that enabled him to secure his first Golden Shoe, he was equally excellent and similarly unstoppable in 2021–2022 while punching home 35 goals. That output was substantially better than Kylian Mbappé’s 28 tallies and the 27 produced by Karim Benzema and Ciro Immobile. Lewandowski’s scoring-filled season enabled him to join some rather exclusive company. Since 2000 the only other players to pull off the feat of claiming back-to-back Golden Shoe Awards are Arsenal’s Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi of Barcelona, and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

Check out some of the goal-scoring exploits of Robert Lewandowski that helped him pick up two straight European Golden Shoe Awards in 2021 and 2022.

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski

SWEET 16 During Poland’s bid to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, Robert Lewandowski went on a jaw-dropping scoring binge that etched his name in the record books and—most important to him, his teammates, and his nation’s rabid soccer fans—helped his country secure a coveted spot in the 32-team draw in Russia to compete for global soccer supremacy. Lewandowski scored in Poland’s first six qualifying round matches, and he finished with goals in nine of the 10 matches, on his way to becoming the first European player ever to score 16 goals during a World Cup qualifying campaign. His sweet 16 run featured three hat tricks, as he accounted for all his team’s goals in a 3–2 win over Denmark and a 3–1 win over Romania. He also blitzed Armenia for three scores. Poland managed 28 goals during its 10 qualifying matches, with its beloved captain accounting for more than half of them during a record-setting run of excellence.

Robert Lewandowski became the first European player ever to score 16 goals during a World Cup qualifying campaign to help Poland earn a berth in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

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Greatest Moments

WINS TREBLE IN 2020 Bayern Munich pulled off the difficult-to-attain treble in 2020— winning the Champions League, Bundesliga, and German Cup— behind the explosive and incredibly entertaining excellence of Robert Lewandowski. The Polish striker was the runaway vote getter for Forward of the Season in the Champions League, where his 15 goals were tops among all players. His prodigious output made him the league’s first top scorer from a club other than Barcelona or Real Madrid since Cristiano Ronaldo pulled off the feat for Manchester United way back in 2008. Lewandowski was also the top scorer in the Bundesliga with 34 goals in 31 matches while scooping up its Player of the Season award. It marked a stretch of special soccer produced by Lewandowski, with plenty of help from his teammates. Bayern Munich nipped Paris Saint-Germain 1–0 in a riveting showdown in Portugal for the Champions League crown, which was their 21st win in a row.

Robert Lewandowski and his Bayern Munich teammates celebrate after their 1–0 victory against Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League final to complete winning the treble in 2020.

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski

WINS BEST FIFA MEN’S PLAYER AWARD . . . AGAIN! When Robert Lewandowski managed to wrap his hands around the first of his back-to-back Best FIFA Men’s Player Awards in 2020, he did so by beating out two of the sport’s most iconic and dominating forces on the pitch in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. In 2021, he was the top vote-getter once again, topping Messi and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, cementing his status as one of the planet’s premier footballers. The FIFA award is special because it encompasses the voices of the players, who know better than anyone who is most difficult to play against and most deserving of being honored; others who get to cast a vote are the coaches of all the national teams and select journalists; and fans get a chance for a vote, too. Lewandowski’s play during this two-year period certainly warranted snagging a bounty of the votes, as among the many lofty numbers he produced was 69 goals across all competitions in 2021.

Robert Lewandowski speaks about his tremendous 2021 season, which included winning his second straight Best FIFA Men’s Player Award.

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Greatest Moments

SCORES 300TH BUNDESLIGA GOAL

Robert Lewandowski’s march into the Bundesliga record books was fast and fascinating. He claimed some impressive long-standing marks and, along the way, crossed into the rarest of all territory. Early in 2022, he became just the second player ever in league history to reach 300 goals, and he got there by delivering a hat trick during a 4–0 win against Cologne. Lewandowski punched in his first goal nine minutes into the action and then scored a pair of second-half goals within a 12-minute span to reach the momentous milestone. He grabbed ownership of several of the great striker Gerd Müller’s seasonal records during his prolific goal-scoring career at Bayern Munich, though Müller’s record of 365 Bundesliga goals is safe now that Lewandowski has joined Barca in La Liga. Lewandowski is gracious when talking about Müller, who passed away in 2021 at age 75, crediting him with setting high standards for other players to strive for.

Robert Lewandowski scored his 300th goal in the Bundesliga as part of a hat trick he netted in a win over Cologne in January of 2022.

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World Class Footballers: Robert Lewandowski