By SBI SOCCER
It’s hard to imagine a striker playing much better than Robert Lewandowski did Tuesday.
Coming into the match as a halftime substitute, Lewandowski scored five times in a nine minute span, leading Bayern Munich to a 5-1 victory over Wolfsburg Tuesday.
Lewandowski’s first finish came in the 51st minute before the Polish star provided another finish just one minute later. After adding additional scored in the 55th and 57th, Lewandowski saved his best for last, unleashing a scissor kick in the 60th minute to cap off a record-setting night.
The forward’s first three finishes broke the record for fastest Bundesliga hat-trick, while his total of five was also scored faster than any other in the league’s existence.
Here are some more of Tuesday evening’s news and notes:
COSTA HIT WITH THREE-MATCH BAN
Following his actions in Chelsea’s defeat of Arsenal last weekend, Diego Costa is set for a spell on the sidelines.
The FA announced Tuesday that Costa has been suspended three games for violent conduct following a series of incidents with Arsenal defenders Laurent Koscielny and Gabriel in the 2-0 Chelsea win at Stamford Bridge.
“An FA charge against Diego Costa for violent conduct not seen by the match officials but caught on video has been found proven following an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing,” the FA said in a statement. “The Chelsea forward will, therefore, serve the standard penalty of a three-match suspension with immediate effect.
“The charge, which the player denied, was in relation to an incident involving Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny in the 43rd minute of the game on Saturday.”
In response, Chelsea has issued a statement revealing that the club will “await their written reasons before commenting further”.
BALOTELLI SCORES IN AC MILAN WIN
Mario Balotelli’s AC Milan reboot is off to a solid start.
The Italian striker scored a wonderful free kick, helping lead AC Milan to a 3-2 victory over Udinese in Tuesday’s Serie A action.
Balotelli’s finish came in the fifth minute, as the controversial striker smashed a free kick from the left side of the box. AC Milan also received goals from Giacomo Bonaventura and Cristian Zapata, undoing finishes from Udinese’s Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu and Duvan Zapata.
CHELSEA DOCTOR CARNEIRO REPORTEDLY QUITS; CONSIDERING LEGAL OPTIONS
A Chelsea doctor’s recent feud with Jose Mourinho could reportedly continue in court.
Eva Carneiro, Chelsea’s club doctor, has reportedly left the club and is considering her legal options after seeing her role reduced following a disagreement with Mourinho in Chelsea’s season-opener against Swansea.
Mourinho was seen to be visibly upset at the doctor after she entered the field of play to treat Eden Hazard and the Chelsea manager proceeded to criticize Carneiro in three separate interview in the aftermath of the incident.
Carneiro, who joined Chelsea in 2009, has not reported for duty since the incident.
Rogers was so smart to rate Henderson ahead of Balo for free kicks at liverpool. Top manager right there.
I scored a goal once
And played for 5 teams in a shorter span than anyone ever. Credit where credit is due
LoL holy &^%$ what in the world does it take to move on??? Lots to like, think, talk about in the game. How in the world does a mind-blowing 5 goal flurry by Lewandowski in 9 minutes elicit a discussion of Landon v Klinsi? Apparently…. all roads lead there.
dalomismo,
What is the matter with you?
The entire SBI universe revolves around JK’s personal grudge against Landon,.the greatest player in the history of the human race.
Lol
Apparently I’ve blinders on because even though I enjoyed watching LD play, I can’t manage to get myself to give the slightest *&^%. No worries. I’ll just slink off in blissful ignorance and somehow get through an entire game… week,,, season without it ever coming to mind. What is wrong with me?????
By the way GW- see your posts as mostly being quite knowledgeable, lucid and rational, so said w/ my tongue firmly planted in cheek Just had to do a double-take and laugh at where that went. Cheers.
dalomismo,
Well when your teenage son acts stupid and tweets out that his dad has said bad things about the greatest player ever then you know that is concrete evidence that JK has been planning to humiliate Landon since way back when.
Teenage sons are solid, reliable witnesses who never do anything stupid.
.
Obviously, the entire point of JK importing Donovan to Munich was to expose and humiliate him, even though that move backfired and contributed to JK getting fired
This article is probably the best, least hysterical, interpretation of why JK dropped LD:
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/why-klinsmann-had-drop-landon-donovan-his-world-cup-squad#:ex6kvNGrPexA4A
hyperbole is symptomatic of a weak argument, gw.
i don’t care that much either way (not like we were going to win the world cup with donovan), but occam’s razor says that jurgen didn’t like donovan and jonathan caught on.
and i don’t know if you’re being purposefully obtuse, but i don’t hear anybody saying that klinsmann played donovan out of position at bayern to “humiliate” him, anymore than he wanted to “humiliate” bedoya the other night. (that’s just what he does.)
i assume that at bayern, klinsmann had pegged donovan as a world-class forward for some reason, and then was frustrated when he didn’t get 100% buy-in (landon being landon), which he wouldn’t easily forget.
Nate Dollars,
What hyperbole?
There are more than a few on SBI who claim the only reason JK left LD off the Brazil team was a “personal grudge”.
Nothing hyperbolic about that.
As for Jonathan, I know more than a few people who despise some of their employees and say bad things about them in the privacy of their homes.
But that doesn’t mean they fire them or don’t respect them.
.
what hyperbole? pretty much your whole comment:
“his dad has said bad things about the greatest player ever”
“that is concrete evidence”
“Teenage sons are solid, reliable witnesses who never do anything stupid.”
“the entire point of JK importing Donovan to Munich was to expose and humiliate him”
sarcastic hyperbole is still hyperbole, if your implication is that it’s what others are saying. or call it a straw man; take your pick, i guess.
and thanks for the #notallemployers anecdotal evidence. i also know people who’ve said bad things about employees in private and have subequently treated them like trash, so i guess it’s even.
good post Nate, thanks
there are more than a few here on SBI who claim that the reason JK left LD off the Brazil team was for “soccer reasons”
GW, lots of hyperbole in your posts in this thread, for whatever reason
it’s spam. i don’t really get it, but that’s what it is. a lot of those comments (generic or non-sequitur name; something about how they wish we had more guys playing in europe) have been showing up on here lately.
I believe it has to do with diversionary tactics. Some people want to talk more about things they are familiar with, and some people might not like it that there are great players other than Landon Donovan. Lewandowski was great when he played at Dortmund. He is even better at Muenchen .
dos a cero forever!
dalmismo, please pardon our good friend gw, he has good intentions, i think. i reply seriously to your question.
why is ld forever engrained in the hearts of so many usa soccer fans? one reason is the usa – mexico rivalry, yes? (do i have a witness?)
at that time, usa had lot to prove, and these “clash of the titans” (with no holds barred wwe cage match atmosphere every time) were – how to say? they were HUGE. for respect. like, the first time your little cousin watched you play basketball at the park. he any wants to know: are you a CHUMP or can you PLAY? these usa – mexico games were like old school, “i can crap bigger n you”, in your face, cry if it hurts baby, we’re going home and we’re taking your ball. i mean old school old school old school.
well ld came to play at every one of these usa-mexico games. he was always the most hated player in the mexican news media. his presence on the field changed the game. he was unstoppable in these usa-mexico games. they just had no answer for ld. and the 2-0 results continued. and the mexico fans hated ld more and more. and by the mathematical operation of negating a negative ld became usa’s hero.
you have to factor in the urine bombs and smack talk and non stop red card challenges for 90 minutes, everything you knew about soccer went out the window at kick off, these games were sick, they were surreal.
on one of these dos a ceros, in columbus, i think, usa completed the triple: beat mexico dos a cero (again!), finish #1 in concacaf and qualify for the world cup all in one ecstatic moment of emotional bliss. after the game, i remember the players, led by ld (wrapped in a huge american flag), took a victory lap around the stadium to show the fans their thanks and to feel the vibe and drown in usa soccer passion for one unbelievable moment that i think really will live on forever in my mind.
ld, dos a cero. i mean either you “get” it or you don’t. those games are part of usa soccer legend now, i feel little bad for people who missed it, you missed a lot!
dos a cero forever
who is this Robert Lewandowski guy? probably a pu55y (just kidding). but seriously, can he score a hat trick with urine bombs and batteries being thrown at him and laser pointers shining in his eyes and you can feel the hot breath on your neck of 90,000 mexican fans who hate you because they know you are going to beat them dos a cero again…
i mean i don’t follow polish nats or german league and i have no interest to start, to be honest.
Bayern is going all the way this year. Trifecta. Douglas Costa and King Arturo put them over the top.
So he played well at midtable Everton but failed at elite big teams. Still he flopped in Germany
Great game and great decision by FOX
Hope a ton of folks watched this game. Im sure it blew up Twitter
Great that Fox picked up the Bundesliga tv rights.
It’s been exciting early on, what a show by Lewandowski today.
Here’s to Durtmund giving it all this season and challenging BM for the title.
Isnt Munich the club where Donovan flopped or was that Leverkusen?
Bayern Munich, during the tenure of a certain ex-striker, world cup champion, turned coach named Jurgen Klinsman.
Flopped.
Represented himself much more creditably during his loan to Everton.
It didn’t help that Jurgen tried to play Donovan up top as a lone striker when he was only playing as a winger. Should have been a sign of things to come.
Chris,
So now the loan to Bayern was an attempt by JK to sabotage Landon?
How far back does this “personal grudge” against poor Landon go?
“Klinsmann: Donovan’s Bayern loan not a disaster
by Andrew Slevison
4 years ago
Former Bayern Munich manager Juergen Klinsmann has revealed his thoughts on LA Galaxy star Landon Donovan’s loan move to the German club last year.
The 28-year old USA forward spent three months with Bayern in early 2009 and many critics believe it was a bad move but Klinsmann, who was boss at the time, believes Donovan has benefited from his time at the Allianz Arena.
“It was absolutely not a disappointment, it was Landon taking a big risk coming in for three months, knowing ahead of him is Luca Toni, Miro Klose and Lukas Podolski,” Klinsmann said. “He made a lot out of it. You know, I was not agreeing with the board that he was sent back home, and was not agreeing with a lot of things.”
Donovan’s loan deal was not extended by Bayern officials despite calls from Klinsmann to keep him on.
“They didn’t want to give him the time,” he said. “And it made me sad in a certain way, but made him I think even stronger. Now it’s his momentum this World Cup.”
Andrew Slevison”
No LD deserves blame for the flop but so does JK for (as is often the case) not putting the player in the best position to succeed. That caused the grudge which led to him choosing Wondo/Davis and others over LD.
BS
http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/donovan-making-his-case-at-bayern-munich/
Donovan did well in Bayern’s preseason but faltered in the 6 games once the season started
JK claimed then that LD needed more time to adjust to how Bayern plays and said he would have been successful at it .
“Former Bayern Munich manager Juergen Klinsmann has revealed his thoughts on LA Galaxy star Landon Donovan’s loan move to the German club last year.
The 28-year old USA forward spent three months with Bayern in early 2009 and many critics believe it was a bad move but Klinsmann, who was boss at the time, believes Donovan has benefited from his time at the Allianz Arena.
“It was absolutely not a disappointment, it was Landon taking a big risk coming in for three months, knowing ahead of him is Luca Toni, Miro Klose and Lukas Podolski,” Klinsmann said. “He made a lot out of it. You know, I was not agreeing with the board that he was sent back home, and was not agreeing with a lot of things.”
Donovan’s loan deal was not extended by Bayern officials despite calls from Klinsmann to keep him on.
“They didn’t want to give him the time,” he said. “And it made me sad in a certain way, but made him I think even stronger. Now it’s his momentum this World Cup.”
But neither LD nor the Bayern management would give it more time. Plus the Bayern locker room was not exactly welcoming.
awesome, i forgot about that interview. if only bayern and donovan had recognized klinsmann’s genius.
i do like how, at the end, he tries to take some credit, saying that the bayern stint was inspiring donovan’s world cup performance. really, donovan should be thanking klinsmann.
There are more than few people who claim that the Bayern experience left a bad taste in Donovan’s mouth and led to him being motivated to prove a point with his Everton loan which I think gave him a big boost heading into the 2010 WC.
That and his disappearing act in the 2006 WC
http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/05/after_disappointment_of_2006_a.html
Nate Dollars,
In other words you agree with the Bayern managment and with Donovan that he wasn’t good enough for Bayern?
JK thought he was and put his money where is mouth was And if you don’t think that Bayern experience was valuable to LD then you haven’t been paying attention.
.
As for managers loving their players do you really think that all managers love all their players and think they are all great human beings?
From what I have seen managers will put up with repellent human beings as long as they are eligible to perform out on the field. Follow the NBA or the NFL for a season or two. Or look up Pete Rose sometime.
And if you are a really wonderful human being but can’t play, they will love you to death but cut you as soon as possible.
“In other words you agree with the Bayern managment and with Donovan that he wasn’t good enough for Bayern?”
definitely not as a forward, although he *might* have had a shot as a winger. maybe.
“if you don’t think that Bayern experience was valuable to LD then you haven’t been paying attention.”
could it have contributed in some way? sure, why not, every little bit counts. but then so did his time in leverkusen, san jose, la, everton, and anywhere else donovan’s ever played. just thought it was funny that klinsmann tried to claim some credit.
no idea what you’re on about in the rest of your comment. i’ve never stated or implied that managers must like their players, or vice versa.
Nate Dollars says:
“definitely not as a forward, although he *might* have had a shot as a winger. maybe.”
definitely?
Landon scored 4 goals in 5 pre season games for Bayern Munich. I did not see them so I don’t know where he started and I haven’t seen the lineups so I don’t know if he started alone or with Toni or Klose or Podolski.
However, I’ve seen LD switch from forward to either wing in the course of one game, especially when he was younger, many times so it doesn’t really matter where he started.
He was unable to carry that over to the 6 games he played during the regular season.
” it was funny that klinsmann tried to claim some credit.”
That’s your interpretation.
I saw it as JK using LD’s case as an example of a principle he is known for stating frequently, that failure is the best teacher, that the players who fail, learn from it and then come back, are much stronger.
He was pointing out that the experience made LD stronger something just about anyone, looking back ( this interview was a few years after the fact) might conclude.
No interest in getting into any of that stale nonsensical drama as….. my entire point is 2-fold- that is past history completely and totally unrelated to the article… you know… about an an incredible totally unrelated feat, including a wonder-goal? Weird compulsion that a soccer fan can’t simply enjoy that display without sinking down that pointless rabbit hole.
If you haven’t seen the game…. I suggest you clear you head, forget and enjoy it. Lewandowski was freaking unconscious.
Failed at Leverkusen as a teenager….loaned then sold to MLS.
Had a failed loan at Munich.
Following years loaned to Everton was successful.
Is Lewandowski underrated?
CONSTANTLY i see debates on best striker with the likes of Costa, RVP, Suarez, Rooney, Torres (well before 2011), Cavani, Ibrahimovic
lewandowski always seems to be in the lower tier of elite striker along with guys like Mario Gomez or Huntelaar or Mandzukic or Dzeko
I mean to me honestly you are a world class striker
If you can
1) start for a big club
2) consistently score (either 25 goals a season and/or score in big matches
good costa is scum