Lewandowski wins Golden Shoe, now targets LaLiga victory

On Wednesday, Polish striker Robert Lewandowski received the Golden Shoe award, which he earned as last season’s top league goalscorer in Europe, at the Antiga Fàbrica Estrella Damm in Barcelona.

It is the second consecutive year in which Lewandowski has won the award, after scoring 35 goals for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. In the previous season (2020-21), he scored 41 league goals, surpassing the likes of Lionel Messi (30) and Cristiano Ronaldo (29) by a long shot.

Lewandowski is one of just 12 players to have won the Golden Shoe twice. If he manages to win it a third time, he would be one of just two, as Messi is the only other person to win it more than twice - six times Messi’s won it, to be exact.

As Lewandowski looks to win it for the third time, he’s currently third in the race with 13 goals with Barcelona, behind Manchester City’s Erling Haaland and Bodo Glimt’s Amahl Pellegrino. And he has his sights set on another victory in LaLiga.

“I want to say thank you to my ex-teammates [at Bayern Munich], and to my Barcelona teammates,” said Lewandowski as he received the Golden Shoe. “Now we are in a good way, even when we show what happened in the last game [against Osasuna]. We won this kind of game.”

Lewandowski is referring to the game against Osasuna, which they won 2-1 after receiving several penalties against them, which they considered to be unfair. In that game, Lewandowski, along with Gerard Piqué, were sent off, receiving two yellow cards and a red card, respectively.

“It means it’s a big step, to be not only in first place, but even thinking about winning LaLiga,” said Lewandowski. “And I know with our hard work and going the same way, we are thinking about this.”