On his 70th birthday, Gerd Mueller’s record of 40 goals in a single Bundesliga season is “still unbeatable” — according to one of the strikers who could break it.
Bayern Munich and Germany legend Mueller, who was dubbed Der Bomber, or the bomber, and is being treated for Alzheimer’s at a Bavarian nursing home, turned 70 yesterday.
During his career, Mueller finished as the Bundesliga’s top scorer on seven occasions.
Photo: Reuters
No one has ever come close to beating his record haul of 40 German league goals scored in the 1971-1972 season — until now.
Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski has so far scored 13 goals in 11 league games this campaign.
At the same stage of the season in 1971, Mueller had only scored six goals, while Lewandowski needed just nine minutes to score five goals against VfL Wolfsburg in September.
The Poland hotshot hopes to add to his tally of 17 goals in all competitions for Bayern this season at home to Arsenal today in the Champions League.
However, the 27-year-old insists Mueller’s record over a 34-match league season is still a long way off.
“It’s still too far away,” Lewandowski said on Monday. “You’d need to score two or three goals in every game, only then can you think about doing it.”
“When you look at the league’s scoring records, his name is almost alongside everyone,” Lewandowski added. “That shows what a great player he was.”
Bayern won the title in the 1971-1972 season by 22 points, with Mueller scoring five and four goals in two separate league matches.
He also scored a hat-trick on no less than four more occasions.
Lewandowski has already equaled one of Mueller’s records this season by scoring 10 goals after seven league games, set in the 1973-1974 season.
David Alaba, Lewandowski’s teammate, earlier in the season said: “40 is a big number, but with Robert in this kind of form, anything is possible.”
However, the Poland international is not the only current Bundesliga star who could challenge Mueller’s record this season.
His Bayern teammate Thomas Mueller has scored 10 goals in 11 league games, but says it would take a phenomenal effort to break Mueller’s record.
“He [Lewandowski] has set the bar high for himself and it would be good for us all if he could maintain it, but realistically, there will be games when he’ll only score one or none,” Thomas Mueller said.
Alongside Lewandowski, Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is the league’s joint top scorer with 13 goals for Borussia Dortmund.
He says his target is simply keeping up with Lewandowski in the battle for the Bundesliga’s “Golden Cannon,” which is awarded to the league’s top scorer.
“Lewandowski is one of the best strikers in the world at the moment”, Aubameyang said after scoring a hat-trick against Augsburg. “I’m trying to do better than him, but I can only try.”
“It’s been a good start [to the season], but it’s going to be difficult to overtake Gerd Mueller,” he added.
One Gerd Mueller record that is good for another season is his incredible haul of 15 goals after just 10 games in the 1968-1969 season.
“Gerd Mueller is one of the greats of world football,” Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said. “Without his goals, FC Bayern and German football would not be where it is today.”
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