Barcelona superstar sets sights on Lionel Messi’s Champions League record | OneFootball

FC Barcelona lock horns with FC Copenhagen tonight in the UEFA Champions League, hoping to secure a top-eight finish and progress directly to the Round of 16.

Unless something drastic happens, Robert Lewandowski appears poised to start as the No. 9 for the Blaugrana tonight at the Spotify Camp Nou, with Ferran Torres only recently returning from an injury.

Lewandowski eyes Messi record

Approaching his 38th birthday, Lewandowski continues to make history. He could add another chapter tonight if he scores in his first career match against FC Copenhagen.

The Barcelona forward would add the Danish side to the list of teams he has scored against in Europe’s top competition.

Last week, he turned Slavia Prague into his 39th victim, moving past the 38 of Cristiano Ronaldo and closing in on the 40 achieved by Lionel Messi with Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. Scoring tonight would take him level with the former Barça captain.

The Pole had not yet opened his account in this edition of the European Cup. With his goal in the Czech capital, he has now scored in 15 consecutive Champions League seasons. He is the third-highest scorer in the competition’s history, sharing the podium with Cristiano and Messi.

Lewandowski is a prolific scorer in the Champions League. (Photo by Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images)

Ronaldo leads with 140 goals in 183 matches, an average of 0.76 per game, the same as Lewandowski, who has 106 goals in 139 appearances for Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Between them sits Messi, with 129 goals in 163 matches.

At his age, catching them overall is unrealistic, but Lewandowski could still climb the ranking of Barcelona players with the most goals in the European Cup.

Messi’s 129 goals are out of reach, but Lewandowski already has 20 in 33 matches as a Barcelona player, the same total as Luis Enrique achieved in 41 games. He is now only behind Luis Suarez (25), Rivaldo (25), Neymar (21) and Patrick Kluivert (21).

He has already moved ahead of legends such as Samuel Eto’o, who scored 18 goals in 40 European Cup matches for Barcelona. Hristo Stoichkov scored 15 in 30 matches, Pedro added 15 in 61, and Ronaldinho left for Milan with 14 in 35.