Lewandowski sets new Bundesliga goal mark; Bremen relegated

Sports Desk, May 22 (EFE).- Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski scored in the last minute of Saturday’s contest against FC Augsburg to break Gerd Müller’s 49-year-old record for most goals in a Bundesliga season with 41.

For Werder Bremen, the final day of the campaign produced a milestone of a different kind, as the club was relegated for the first time in four decades.

Match Day 34 offered little in the way of suspense. Bayern had already clinched their ninth straight Bundesliga title, RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg held the remaining Champions League spots and Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayer Leverkusen had locked down the Europa League places.

In terms of the table, all that remained to be decided were the respective fates of Arminia, Bremen and Köln. One would secure another season in the top-flight and another would earn a chance to stay up via playoff, while the loser would join last-place Schalke in dropping to the second division.

But most of the buzz centered on the match at Munich’s Allianz Arena pitting Bayern against Augsburg, whose coach, Markus Weinzierl, said that he was determined to stop Lewandowski from breaking the record Müller set in 1971-1972.

“Gerd Müller was my idol when I was in my youth, and he was my assistant coach with the Bayern amateurs. I know him well and really look up to him, so I’d like the record to stay shared,” the Augsburg boss said ahead of the game.

The 75-year-old Müller suffers from dementia, but his wife said that he would have been happy to see someone improve on his scoring mark.

Her husband had “always wondered how it was that nobody had overtaken him,” Uschi Müller told Swiss newspaper Blick. “Gerd is a stranger to envy. He would never have regretted losing the record.”

The hosts led 4-0 at half-time on an own goal by Augsburg’s Jeffrey Gouweleeuw and goals from Serge Gnabry, Joshua Kimmich and Kingsley Coman.

Lewandowski had several chances in the opening 45 minutes, but failed to put the ball past Polish compatriot Rafal Giekiewicz.

Augsburg rallied in the second half, cutting the deficit to 4-2 on goals by Andre Hahn and Florian Niederlechner before Lewandowski scored in the 90th minute, knocking in the rebound after Giekiewicz made the initial stop against Leroy Sane.

The goal brought the Poland captain’s Bundesliga total to 277, second only to Müller, who had 365 in 484 top-flight appearances, all but 31 of them for Bayern.

At the bottom of the table, four-time Bundesliga champions Bremen fell 4-2 to Mönchengladbach on Saturday to see their latest run in the top-flight end after 41 seasons.

Arminia held onto to 15th place with a 2-0 away victory over Stuttgart, while Köln nipped Schalke 1-0 to finish 16th, setting up a playoff with the third-best team in the second division for a berth in the 2021-2022 Bundesliga.

Union Berlin capped off their surprisingly good campaign with a victory against Leipzig to seal seventh place and a ticket to the new Europa Conference League. EFE rz/dr