Robert Lewandowski’s hat-trick on his first European outing for the club propelled Barcelona to a 5-1 victory over Viktoria Plzen on Champions League matchday one.
In the last three seasons alone, Lewandowski scored 33 Champions League goals for Bayern Munich, including 13 in 2021–2022. He continued this success in his new team’s outings.
However, the action at Camp Nou began with another newcomer’s arrival. After only 13 minutes, Franck Kessie used his head to direct Jules Kounde’s header back across the goal from a deep, in-swinging corner kick by Ousmane Dembele.
Around 20 minutes after the action started, Lewandowski joined in. He received the ball from Sergi Roberto at the edge of the penalty area and quickly stroked it into the bottom corner.
By halving the deficit with a header from Jan Sykora just before halftime, Plzen actually made a bid to get back into the contest. But it didn’t take long for Lewandowski to score again, this time with a header thanks to Dembele’s work on the right, to restore the two-goal lead.
His hat-trick goal was the best of the bunch, which was a more spectacular version of his first goal. Ferran Torres’ lay-off was perfectly weighted, and the seasoned Pole once more simply stroked the ball into the bottom corner, this time from about 25 yards out.
Another Dembele assists set up Barcelona’s fifth and final goal, a chipped through ball over the top that Torres lashed in on the turn near the penalty spot.
Barcelona now leads Group C going into their match against Bayern Munich on matchday two next week. They depart for Cadiz in La Liga on Saturday before that.
