Robert Lewandowski is hopeful of landing a first Ballon d Or, citing his remarkable achievements over the past two years.
Lewandowski was in incredible form as Bayern Munich won a treble in 2019-20, but the award was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the 33-year-old has maintained his incredible standards and was named on the 30-man shortlist for this year s prize.
Last season, the centre-forward broke Gerd Muller s long-standing record of Bundesliga goals in a single season, netting 41 times in the league and scoring seven more across all other club competitions, the most of any player in Europe s top five leagues.
Lewandowski has not surrendered that position this season, with his 13 strikes in all competitions lifting him above second and third-placed Erling Haaland and Karim Benzema, on 11 and 10 goals respectively.
The Poland captain feels his astonishing level of production makes a good case for him to win the award, despite competition from the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Benzema and six-time winner Lionel Messi.
The possibility of winning the Ballon d Or means a lot to me, it makes me feel proud, if you look at everything I ve achieved, not just this year, last year as well when they cancelled the ceremony, I ve won a lot of titles, scored a lot of goals, Lewandowski told Marca.
It would mean a lot to me to win it, having won the Champions League, the Super Cup, the Club World Cup. Breaking Gerd Muller s record of [40] Bundesliga goals [in a single season] was also a big achievement, one which made me very proud and happy.
Everyone can see what I have done and keep doing. My achievements speak for themselves because my last two years have been a big achievement, not just for me but for any player in history.
Of his many achievements over the last two years, breaking revered goalscorer Muller s record is one of the most special to Lewandowski, who surpassed the late Bayern legend on the final day of the 2020-21 Bundesliga season with a 90th-minute strike in a 5-2 victory over Augsburg.
I have to say that I couldn t sleep well [the night I broke Muller s record], Lewandowski continued. I remember the week before the game well, I heard I was on the verge of breaking the record. Until then the importance of breaking it hadn t really dawned on me, not just for the Bundesliga but in terms of football history.
The day of the match I thought this is mentally tough because it s all anyone is talking about . I knew I was so close, on the verge of making history, it was hard, but after scoring in the final seconds of the game I said to myself, this is like a Hollywood movie.
I was very proud of myself, of my team-mates, because they helped me a lot to break the record. To be honest, I still can t truly appreciate the magnitude of it, but I know what it means to people, they remember that record stood for [nearly] 50 years.
