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Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski is on the verge of breaking Cristiano Ronaldo's UEFA Champions League record of most penalties. The 40-year-old Ronaldo last played in the competition in 2022 while he was in his second stint at Manchester United.
Lewandowski, like Ronaldo, is one of the most prolific scorers in Champions League history. With 103 strikes, he's the competition's third most prolific scorer, behind Ronaldo (140) and Lionel Messi (128).
In a group phase game in January, Lewandowski scored a pair of penalties in Barca's 5-4 win at Benfica to overtake Messi (18) as the competition's joint-most prolific penalty taker, level with Ronaldo (19). It was Lewandowski's fourth successful spot-kick in the Champions League for Barca, with 15 coming while he was at Bayern Munich.
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The 36-year-old will claim the record outright if he scores again from the spot when the Blaugrana host Benfica in the second leg of their Round of 16 tie on Tuesday (March 11). Hansi Flick's side lead 1-0 following their narrow win in Portugal last week.
Lewandowski has scored nine times in the Champions League - from as many outings - this season, with all of his goals coming in the group phase.
With 69 strikes (for Bayern), the Pole is fourth in the list of most goals in the competition for a single club, behind Messi (112 for Barca), Ronaldo (105 for Real Madrid) and Karim Benzema (78 for Real Madrid).
A look at some of Cristiano Ronaldo's UEFA Champions League records
Cristiano Ronaldo is the game's most prolific scorer, with 927 goals for club and country. That includes - as mentioned above - a record 140 strikes in the UEFA Champions League.
That's not the only record the five-time Ballon d'Or winner holds in the competition. Some of his major Champions League records include most appearances (183), most goals in the knockouts (67) and most goals in a season (17 in 2013-14). He's also the only player to top-score in the competition seven times, six of them coming with Real Madrid.
Moreover, Ronaldo is the only player to score in three Champions League finals and the only one to score for two different winning teams in the final. He's one of two players to score in all six games in the erstwhile group stage and the only one to score in 11 straight games.
Ronaldo's 15 appearances in UEFA.com's users' Team of the Year is also unrivalled.
