Lewandowski vs Haaland – Who will reign supreme at Der Klassiker?

Ahead of this weekends game that sees Bayern Munich travel to Dortmund in the classic Der Klassiker, I’m going to compare and contrast the pair and try to attain who is truly the best No.9 in the Bundesliga.

Style of Play

They say opposites attract Lewandowski is naturally right-footed, Haaland has a heat seaking missile for a left foot.
Lewandowski although the shorter of the two is a master of his craft in the air being four inches shorter than his opponent isn’t a necessarily a advantage for Haaland, the least experienced Haaland has gone about strengthening his game by adding a solid aerial threat to his game this season.

What the Bayern man lacks in height, he makes up for in positioning and execution. 10 of Lewandowski ‘ 12 league goals from open play this season has came from the central third of the opponent’s 18-yard area, he is the ultimate poacher.

Haaland, by contrast is a polar opposite making aggressive runs from deep at speed – 22.31 mph at its peak this term – are all elements of Haaland’ game.

Goalscoring

As we saw recently Lewandowski was cruelly denied the 2021 Ballon D’Or, even though he’s put away a impressive 14 goals in his first 13 appearances of the 2021/22 Bundesliga season, although a new award was created specifically to sweeten the loss and Lewandowski was crowned the first World Striker of the Year, and so far this season it would appear that Lewandowski is the man to beat at the top of the scoring charts.

The Bayern goalscoring machine has found the net a incredible 64 times in the 2021 calendar year alone, while only failing to score in four of his 20 competitive outings for Bayern this season.

The man dubbed LewanGOALski is currently averaging a league goal every 78 minutes at a rate of 1.07 per game, and has already reached double figures for an 11th successive season.

It would appear that he will be breaking the 30-goal barrier yet again – as he has in four of his seven full campaigns at Bayern, at this stage it almost appears to be a formality, while his own 41-goal single-season best mark, which he set in 2020/21 is well withing his reach on his current form.

Now let’s take a look at the Norwegian, Haaland has scored 10 times goals in just seven league outings in 2021/22, surely would have been more if it hadn’t been for a persistent hip flexor injury that had kept him out for numerous games.

Haaland at just 21 years of age has already started to smash records in the Bundesliga, he currently ranks as the first player in Bundesliga history to bag a debut hat-trick from the bench. Going on to score nine goals in just five games after his debut, on his return this previous week Haaland now has the record as the youngest and fastest player to have achieved the target of scoring 50 goals a task he has completed in as many games.

Haaland is twelve years the junior of Lewandowski, and you can believe the records Lewangoalski has set will be the benchmark in the back of the mind Haaland.

Conclussion

Without waffling on there is no doubt that Lewandowski has a serious contender to his throne in Haaland.

With all the incredible goalscoring records held by Lewandowski its hard look past him being the main man, although what Haaland has already achieved in the black-and-yellow shirt have led high praise from coaches and players alike.

So I suppose what I’m saying is we’re looking at a classic example of past, present and future, Lewandowski past goal scoring exploits are not in question, presently as previously mentioned Lewandowski was just awarded the Best striker award at the Ballon D’Or, but I don’t think anybody can question that Haaland is undoubtedly the future.

What do you think, who will come out on top during the upcoming Der Klassiker?.

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