The veteran striker has come under fire for going four games without scoring for FC Barcelona, including blanks in both legs against Paris Saint-Germain which led to their Champions League exit. But Lewandowski scored a powering hattrick on Monday night to deny league-leaders Real Madrid take the crown this weekend.
Why has there been a sudden upturn in Robert Lewandowski’s form?
The former Bayern Munich center-forward is under contract with Blaugrana until the summer of 2026 and scored his first hat-trick of the season against Valencia on Monday night.
Yamine Lamal opened the scoring in 22 minutes before Valencia’s Hugo Duro responded within five minutes with an equaliser. But the visitors were soon down to 10 men when goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili was dismissed for handling the ball outside his area.
Barcelona took advantage of the crumbling Valencia, with Lewandowski scoring with two headers from corners in the 49th and 82nd minute before slotting a sumptuous free-kick into the top corner in added time to score his third and Barca’s fourth of the night.
This puts the Polish striker in fourth position in La Liga’s top scorer list with 16 goals, and one behind Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham and Villarreal’s Alexander Sorloth and three off Girona’s Artem Dovbyk.
Robert Lewandowski was ecstatic to speak after guiding Barcelona to another emphatic win on home soil.
“No, it wasn’t easy at all. In the first half we didn’t have much space going forward but I think the most important thing is that if we concede one or two we can score three or four. This is Barca and we need to play attacking football, we need to score many goals and that makes life a lot easier,” he said.
“Now we can look ahead to the next game against Girona. The more goals we score, the easier it is for me and for everyone. My hat trick comes from the work of the entire team.”