Robert Lewandowski scored a record-breaking 10 minutes and 27 seconds hat-trick to send Bayern Munich sailing into the Champions League quarter-finals with a 7-1 win at home to Red Bull Salzburg on Tuesday.
The Polish striker had three goals to his name by the 23rd minute – the earliest anyone has ever completed a hat-trick in a Champions League game – as Bayern shook off their early nerves to crush Salzburg.
With the hat-trick scored on Tuesday, Lewandowski beat Marco Simone’s previous best of 24 minutes for Milan against Rosenborg in 1996.
The Pole has reached 85 Champions League goals in just 104 games, faster than Lionel Messi (107 games) and Cristiano Ronaldo (121) managed.
He is now the tournament’s top scorer with 12 goals this season.
For a seventh successive season, Lewandowski has hit the 40-goal mark.
With just 10 minutes and 27 seconds between Lewandowski’s first and third goals, it was the fastest of the six hat-tricks the Pole has now scored in the Champions League.
Bayern started with an attack-heavy 3-5-2, but they looked nervy at the back and there were chances at both ends in the opening minutes.
Lewandowski forced a sharp save from Philipp Koehn with the first attack of the game, while Nicolas Capaldo was denied at the other end by a brilliant block from Kingsley Coman.
Lewandowski gratefully tucked away a penalty to give Bayern the lead on 12 minutes after he was brought down by Maximilian Woeber in the box.
Initially, the lead didn’t seem to calm Bayern’s nerves, and Salzburg almost equalised as Nicolas Seiwald fizzed a fierce shot over the bar at the other end.
But Lewandowski was in a predatory mood, and he soon added two more to complete his hat-trick and put the tie beyond the Austrian side.
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