Robert Lewandowski Tactical Profile - Powered By Tifo Football

What makes a striker good? If the end product is measured in goals, what are the component parts that go to create someone who scores them? Anticipation, positioning, reactions, and execution – these are the core skills of a great striker. And while these skills can be practised, and teammates can learn how to best serve their striker, some players just have the ability to be in the right place at the right time, and the ability to convert opportunities. Robert Lewandowski is one of those players. Robert Lewandowski is one of the greatest strikers ever to play in the Bundesliga. He's won six Bundesliga titles, two with Borussia Dortmund and four with Bayern München. He's scored at least 17 goals in every season except his first. In the all-time Bundesliga scorers list, the Polish striker ranks fifth. Lewandowski has scored, on average, one goal every 111 minutes in the Bundesliga, in Bundesliga history, of players with over 50 matches. Only Gerd Müller betters that, with one goal every 105 minutes. Lewandowski has been the league's top scorer three times. Only Gerd Müller, Ulf Kirsten, and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge have equaled or exceeded this feat. And the club of people who've top scored in the league while at two different teams is even smaller. Only Stefan Kuntz and Klaus Alofs have done it otherwise, and Lewandowski is the only foreign player. Lewandowski also entered the history books on September 22, 2015, coming on as a substitute against Wolfsburg and scoring five goals in nine minutes, the first five-goal haul since 1991, the fastest in Bundesliga history, and the first Bayern player coming off the bench. Lewandowski, like his Bayern colleague Thomas Müller, seems to have an instinctive grasp of where to be when the ball comes into the danger area. While he can shoot superbly from distance, Lewandowski is at his most dangerous at the tip of the Bayern attack, constantly looking to dart into space, away from defenders, using changes of pace to find room to fashion a shooting chance. Here, against Mainz, Lewandowski sees the space towards the near post, anticipates the cross into that danger area, and times the acceleration of his movement to deny the opposition defender any chance of getting in a block. And good strikers are follow-up opportunities. Here, scoring against Nürnberg, Leon Goretzka's strike is from deep, but Lewandowski is already on his way, moving in so that when the midfielder's shot cannons off the woodwork, he's there to follow up. In Bayern's 4-3-3 and the 4-2-3-1 of past seasons, Lewandowski has always played as the central striker. Although he can and does drift wide to help his colleagues with build-up, he's mostly found in the middle, constantly observing the game around him, probing the opposition, and targeting the channels between defenders. In this goal against Wolfsburg, Lewandowski shows his anticipation and positioning. As the ball breaks centrally, he is looking across the pitch to ensure that if he gets the first pass, he is onside. Once the ball is moved out left, he expertly makes his run in the defender's blind spot, anticipates Gnabry's cross, and has the most simple of finishes. And watch this movement for Lewandowski's goal against Hoffenheim. He first looks into the space between the defenders, then heads for space to take a through pass. When his team-mate cuts inside, again Lewandowski heads for the gap, before finding space and anticipating the cross. It's a masterclass in constant movement. Every time Lewandowski moves, he puts himself into a good position to take a pass and shoot. This example against Gladbach again shows Lewandowski's expert positioning, level with the defence, but finding space between the two defenders in which to receive the pass. He twists and turns to carve out the space to shoot, and somehow manages to get off an unsaveable effort even as he's losing balance. And, sometimes, these things all come together. In this goal against Freiburg, Goretzka's toe-poked pass finds Lewandowski, who has anticipated it, drifting slightly away from his marker to find a better position, reacting to the difficulty of the pass and his own first touch, and then executing a scissor kick to score. It's a perfect example of Lewandowski in action. Lewandowski is, in some ways, an old-fashioned number nine – dominant in the air, focused on scoring above all else, but with the physical capabilities of a very modern footballer. It's worth noting that part of Lewandowski's success is due to his exceptionally professional approach to the game. He's only missed 16 Bundesliga matches since he started in German football in 2010, mostly when rested rather than through injury, and has played at least 30 games a season his entire eight-season Bundesliga career. Fitness and consistency build form and confidence, and Lewandowski has always had both. But these intangible qualities just serve to bolster what is obviously the key to Lewandowski's game. His movement, positional awareness and technical ability all show how Lewandowski has been one of the world's best for almost ten years. And he's still delivering. This season, he's the Bundesliga's top scorer with 21 goals. His seven assists for Bayern mean that no Bundesliga player has scored or created more goals for their team this season. And, of the 18 current Bundesliga clubs, Lewandowski has scored against 17, with only Fortuna Dusseldorf so far escaping. This season, he also became the new record-scoring foreign player in Bundesliga history, overtaking Claudio Pizarro, who held the number one spot for eight years. And, against his former club Borussia Dortmund, Lewandowski hit his 200th and 201st Bundesliga goals. He's already a Bundesliga legend, but Robert Lewandowski shows no signs of slowing down.