How Lewandowski's Champions League season compares to Ronaldo's record-breaker

One of the most interesting sub-plots of the 2019/20 Champions League final has involved Robert Lewandowski and whether he can catch Cristiano Ronaldo's record for most goals in a single Champions League campaign.

The Bayern Munich No.9 has scored 15 goals in Europe's elite club competition this season, two behind Ronaldo's record set in 2013/14. Lewandowski has scored in all nine of his appearances to date and in order to surpass Ronaldo's acomplishment he will need to become the first player ever to score a hat-trick in a Champions League final.

History is clearly stacked against Lewandowski doing just but it has been a formidable campaign nonetheless for Bayern's frontman. He has 55 goals in 46 appearances in all competitions and would have been in contention to win the Ballon d'Or had it gone ahead this year.

But how exactly does Lewandowski's season compare to Ronaldo's record-breaking year? Ronaldo's 17 goals helped Madrid end a 12-year drought in the competition and claim their 10th trophy overall in European football. Ronaldo, who turned 29 midway through the 2013/14 campaign, started the campaign as he meant to go on, netting a hat-trick in a 6-1 win away to Galatasary in their opening group game. He only failed to score in one of his 11 appearances, that falling in the first leg of their semi-final clash with Bayern.

Ronaldo impressively scored multiple goals (2+) in a single Champions League game more often than he netted just once (6 vs 4). In other words, once he got on the scoresheet he tended to grab another. Factoring in his four assists, Ronaldo played a direct hand in 21 goals in just 11 Champions League appearances in 2013/14, averaging a goal or an assist every 47.3 minutes of playing time. His haul of 17 goals was as many as the likes of Sergio Aguero (23 apps), Karim Benzema (35 apps), Wayne Rooney (29 apps) and Gonzalo Higuain (32 apps) managed in their respective league campaigns that year.

In the 10 games Ronaldo scored in, however, only three were match winners. A match winner is defined as the goal that puts a team ahead and it remains that way. For example, the first goal in a 4-0 win would be classed as the winning goal, whereas the third goal scored in a 4-2 win would be defined as the winning goal. Compared to Lewandowski, he has scored the winning goal in four of his nine appearances in the Champions League this season.

In addition to Lewandowski's 15 goals, the Bayern veteran has registered five assists - one more than Ronaldo managed. His minutes per goal contribution is also superior (one every 39.9 minutes of action). Lewandowski also has more WhoScored Man of the Match awards (6) than Ronaldo's 2013/14 year (4) and has so far recorded a perfect WhoScored 10 rating on three occasions. His seasonal average rating of 9.26 puts him on track to set a record for the highest ever acheived in a single Champions League season since we obtained Opta data 10 years ago.

Lewandowski has been a terminator in front of goal this season. His conversion rate is 30.6% and shot accuracy 65.3%. In other terms, when he shoots there is a higher chance he will at least force the goalkeeper into making a save, with nearly one in three attempts finding the back of the net. His conversion rate in the Champions League is remarkably more than double Ronaldo's from 2013/14 and his shot accuracy is also far better.

Ronaldo has been a volume shooter ever since he moved to Madrid and in 2013/14 he averaged 6.8 attempts per 90 in Europe. Only Bayern team-mate Philippe Coutinho (6) averages more shots per 90 (5+ starts) in the Champions League this season than Lewandowski (5.5) but he has been far more efficient with his shot selection than Ronaldo was in 13/14.

Lewandowski may well fall short of Ronaldo's record-breaking season for goals but statistically speaking his campaign is remarkably more impressive. Had the Champions League not been restructured to one-leg matches after the quarter-finals, it's likely Lewandowski would have obliterated the record.