Sports center around moments. The most visceral memories any sports fan has were created in a moment of glory, of incomprehensible madness. We watch thousands of hours of action and are rarely blessed with the opportunity of watching a truly transcendent moment. Games are sold to us as the breeding ground for drama. Often the biggest games of any given season do not live up to the hype. No one can predict when a game will produce a moment—or series of moments—that will whip fans into a frenzy of crazed madness. It’s rather fitting then that Robert Lewandowski transcended into the annals of soccer history in an early season game against Wolfsburg. Not to say that the game wasn’t an important Bundesliga tilt, but no one could guess that a substitute would define the game, and steal the collective breath of the soccer world from our lungs.
Robert Lewandowski spent the first half of Bayern Munich’s game on Tuesday, Sept. 22 on the bench. His team seemed sluggish against an upstart Wolfsburg team, who was determined to steal their first ever victory at Bayern’s cathedral: Allianz Arena. A strike in the 26th minute from Daniel Caligiuri gave Wolfsburg an improbable lead over the Bundesliga champions. The Bayern crowd seemed stunned for a moment. It was a quick jab to the chin of a historically proud and storied franchise. The rest of the first half played out with some chances for both teams. Wolfsburg looked strong. A clumsy turnover by Manuel Neuer at midfield almost turned into a second goal for Wolfsburg. The Bayern post had other plans, swatting the ball out of bounds. Halftime was most likely a tense affair between Pep Guardiola and his team.
Guardiola opted to make some second-half changes. The most impactful of his choices turned out to be subbing in Lewandowski at the helm of the Bayern attack. Lewandowski made his first impact on the game in the 51st minute. Dante, Wolfsburg’s center back poked a tackle to a waiting Lewandowski who finished a rather routine opportunity. It was an opportunistic goal. Guardiola remained tense on the sideline.
Following the restart, the ball worked its way to Lewandowski, who turned and coolly sent a missile into the bottom left corner of the goal from 25 yards out. The situation began to seem out of the ordinary now. Had we just seen the same player score two goals in the span of one minute? Things were about to get a whole lot more unbelievable. In the 55th minute, a mere four minutes after his first goal, and nine minutes after entering the game, Lewandowski scored once again.
As Dante and his Wolfsburg cohorts scrambled around the box Lewandowski stood calmly eight yards out from the goal. When the ball found his foot it had become destined for the back of the net. The initial shot came off the post, then Benaglio got one of his paws on the second attempt, but Lewandowski was not to be denied. At this point, it seemed that a divine hand was guiding the ball. Wolfsburg stood no chance against a man possessed by otherworldly intervention.
The fourth goal came in the 58th minute. A Douglas Costa cross came bouncing into the box, seemingly riding an invisible rope to the right foot of Lewandowski. The shot may have broken the sound barrier as it cruised past Benaglio desperate glove. And that would have been enough. Four goals in nine minutes. Texts and Facebook posts were already whizzing through the interwebs. The performance, if it had ended now, would have been incredible. The fifth goal became the icing on the cake, a stunning strike.
Mario Gotze sent a cross at about head height to a waiting Lewandowski at the edge of the 18-yard box. Lewandowski could have take the ball with his chest, or maybe he could have headed the cross. However, in truly breathtaking fashion he went airborne and with the speed of a cobra his right foot snapped the ball into the back of the net. Lewandowski had netted five goals in nine minutes. Words are not adequate for the performance. Announcers could yell as much as they wanted to into their microphones, but the images went beyond words.
On a field of 22 players, one single man had managed to render every single other player on the field inconsequential. It did not matter what Lewandowski’s teammates did or what Wolfsburg’s defense attempted to do. The explosion was something of a freak accident. The beautiful game had birthed a transcendent moment that no one could have ever expected. Pep Guardiola’s face following the fifth goal summed up rather well how soccer fans felt across the world. The coach’s face looked as if he had just seen Santa Claus on Christmas morning. He had peered into the living room of football and caught a glimpse of the magic that the game is capable of producing. Lewandowski’s performance served as a reminder of the moments that are so integral to sports as a whole. Sometimes, for reasons unknown, the planets of the sports world align and we are able to bear witness to the beauty of a simple game.