Bayern record means Lewandowski won’t catch Ronaldo in goal hunt

Lionel Messi’s stranglehold on the Champions League top goalscorer accolade seems to finally be over after four successive winning seasons, but it is not entirely settled yet whether Cristiano Ronaldo or Robert Lewandowski will top the scoring charts.

Ronaldo will certainly be unlucky if he doesn’t scoop the award for a second time, having secured the honour at Manchester United in 2008.

His current tally of 12 goals would have been enough to be top scorer in all barring two previous seasons of the Champions League, with Messi netting 14 last year and Jose Altafini helping himself to the same number at AC Milan in 1963.

Altafini’s record is slightly misleading though as eight of his total came over two legs of a first-round clash with well-known European giants Union Luxembourg, although he did score both goals in a final victory over a Eusebio-inspired Benfica.

Furthermore, Ronaldo’s goal in the 4-1 defeat in Dortmund was the sixth Champions League game in succession that he found the target, equalling the record currently shared by Marouane Chamakh and Galatasaray hotshot Burak Yilmaz.

Ronaldo already has three Bernabeu hat-tricks to his name this season and Real Madrid could desperately do with another if they are to have a chance of pulling back their three-goal deficit and reaching the final.

It is 1/5 that Ronaldo is this season’s Champions League top scorer.

The fact that Robert Lewandowski scored all four in the Dortmund success has taken his tournament tally to 10 and he should have two games to catch Ronaldo.

Lewandowski is clearly prolific as his 10 goals have come from just 18 shots on target in the competition and he has shortened to 7/2 to be the Champions League top scorer.

However, there are two reasons why this is unlikely.

Firstly, he would almost definitely have to score more than Ronaldo at the Bernabeu in the second leg and given that the Portuguese forward has 10 goals in as many games in front of his own fans, this is a big ask.

Secondly, Lewandowski’s scoring record against Bayern Munich is not overly inspiring, who are clearly the most likely opposition in the final.

The Pole has faced Bayern five times with Dortmund and scored a combined one goal.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.