Lewandowski on his historic night for Poland
Saturday, June 13, 2015
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"This is my quickest career hat-trick; I am also glad I overtook Zbigniew Boniek," Robert Lewandowski told UEFA.com, summing up his day as Poland beat Georgia 4-0.
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Saturday was quite a good day for Robert Lewandowski.
Poland held a narrow 1-0 lead in the 89th minute against Georgia in Warsaw when captain Lewandowski smashed in their second. That moved him level with the great Zbigniew Boniek on 24 Poland goals, but that was not enough for Lewandowski who claimed two more in added time for the fastest hat-trick in his team's history and a 4-0 victory.
"This is the quickest hat-trick in my career," Lewandowski, now top scorer in UEFA EURO 2016 qualifying with seven, told UEFA.com. "I am also glad that I overtook Zbigniew Boniek."
The result keeps Poland a point above Germany in qualifying Group D ahead of their trip to Berlin on 4 September yet they were made to work by Georgia, goalkeeper Giorgi Loria and his defence repelling Lewandowski three times in the first half alone. "It was a very strange match as we had so many chances in the first half," the FC Bayern München striker said.
"If we had scored before the break, the game would have been decided much quicker. Obviously I was unlucky in the first 45 minutes but that's the beauty of football. Sometimes all your shots go in, but sometimes none at all. The most important thing is not to give up in such situations and I didn't. Today I got the prize thanks to my patience. I finally scored my first goal and then kept on scoring!"
The 26-year-old man of the moment added: "Both for us and for the fans it was worth waiting until the last minute. It was something special which doesn't happen very often. Of course it was the quickest hat-trick of my career, but more than that, maybe it was one of the quickest in history. It is nice I scored these goals, but I would like to underline that the whole team did a great job. Everybody was patient and it paid off."
As for overtaking Boniek to go sixth in Poland's all-time scorers' list – one shy of Gerard Cieślik, though still 22 adrift of Włodzimierz Lubański – Lewandowski said: "I am very glad I overtook him because I want to improve every day, I want to break other records, but I want these records to be accompanied by excellent team performances, by victories. I hope we continue to play like today and to win more games."
