IFFHS CONTINENTAL NEWS - EARLIEST HAT TRICK FOR LEWANDOWSKI
Robert Lewandowski scores Champions’ League’s earliest hat-trick!
*Robert Lewandowski (picture) has scored 3 goals for the starting 23 minutes of UCL encounter vs Salzburg (7-1). This is new record on the earliest hat-trick in the history of UEFA Champions League. The previous record belonged to Marco Simone (Milan), 24 minutes vs Rosenborg on 25 September 1996.
*This is 2nd hat-trick for Lewandowski in the current Champions League season. He became 5th player over the history of competition with 2+ hat-tricks in the same season. Luiz Adriano had 2 hat-tricks in 2014-15 campaign, Mario Gomez in 2011-12, Lionel Messi in 2011-12 and 2016-17, Cristiano Ronaldo in 2015-16 and 2016-17 (in first of this cases, he made 3 hat-tricks what is the record for one season).
*In the category of fastest hat-tricks, Lewandowski takes now 3rd place. His three goals spanned just 11 minutes (from 12th to 23rd). There were two cases with a shorter time span:
Bafetimbi Gomis (Lyon) – 8 minutes (vs Dinamo Zagreb, 7-1, on 7 December 2011),
Mike Newell (Blackburn) – 9 minutes (vs Rosenborg, 4-1, on 6 December 1995).
As for Lewandowski, he had another fast hat-trick before: within 12 minutes for Bayern vs Red Star Belgrade (6-0) on 26 November 2019.
*Lewandowski surpassed Sebastien Haller (Ajax) as top-scorer of UCL current season (12 goals in 8 goals). Haller has 11 goals in 7 games so far.
RL9 is now in 5 goals from Cristiano Ronaldo seasonal record (17).
*Lewandowski increased his overall tally of the current season to 42 goals in 35 appearances.
*After this hat-trick, Lewandowski rose for the first time to the leading position in the IFFHS ranking of world best goal-scorers 2002. The Pole has now 12 goals in all competitions; some amount as Akram Afif (Qatar) but placed higher due to tiebreaker (more international goals).