Barcelona 3-0 Brest (November 26, 2024) Match analysis

Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski scored twice as the hosts cruised to a 3-0 win over French side Brest on Tuesday. The Polish striker joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the only players to surpass the 100-goal mark in the competition.

The win moved Barca into second place in the 36-team table with 12 points from five games, one point behind Inter Milan and level with third-place Liverpool, who host Real Madrid on Wednesday. Brest fell to ninth place with 10 points.

Lewandowski gave Barcelona the lead after being fouled by goalkeeper Marco Bizot and converted from the penalty spot in the 10th minute, scoring his 100th Champions League goal.

After consecutive LaLiga games without a win and still missing injured teenage winger Lamine Yamal, Barca returned to winning ways with a dominant performance, managing 19 shots on goal against a team that didn’t have a shot on target.

But the wasteful hosts missed several chances to extend their lead and were almost overtaken by a couple of counter-attacks before Dani Olmo scored the second with a fine individual goal after dribbling past two defenders and firing the ball into the goal.

Lewandowski secured the victory in stoppage time with a neat finish at the far post after an assist from Alejandro Balde.

“I am very happy, very happy. 101 goals in the Champions League is a great number,” Lewandowski told Movistar Plus.

Despite the domestic league’s weak form, Barca are top of LaLiga, four points ahead of Real Madrid, who still have a game in hand.

“We haven’t played well in LaLiga recently, but we still have a lot of games left. We just have to be patient, in the end we will score more goals,” added Lewandowski.

“We want to win every game. If I can score goals to help the team, even better. We have to win every game until the end of the season.”

At 36, Lewandowski has been in top form this season, scoring 22 goals in 19 games in all competitions for Barcelona.

He is the top scorer in the Champions League this season with seven goals in five games and in LaLiga with 15 goals and two assists in 14 games.

Lewandowski’s first goal in the Champions League was scored by Borussia Dortmund in a 3-1 win against Olympiakos Piraeus in October 2011.

With the German team, he scored 17 goals in 28 Champions League games in three seasons and took his tally to a new level after moving to FC Bayern Munich. He scored 69 goals in 78 games over eight seasons before moving to Barcelona two years ago.

However, Lewandowski still has a mountain to climb to surpass former Barca star Messi’s 129 Champions League goals, with Ronaldo holding the record with 140.

Fourth on the list is Karim Benzema with 90 goals, who now plays in Saudi Arabia. The closest player to Lewandowski who is still active in the Champions League is his former Bayern teammate Thomas Müller at 54.

Barca face a busy week with three LaLiga games – home to Las Palmas and away to Mallorca and Real Betis – before facing Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League on December 11.