Imagine If He Had Started - Lewandowski Scores 5 Off the Bench

VfL Wolfsburg had to feel good at halftime yesterday, leading undefeated Bayern München, 1-0 in Munich.

Then Robert Lewandowski entered the match. 

Six minutes after coming off the bench to replace Thiago Alcantaro, Lewandowski took a pass at the 6 and tied the score.  A minute later he gave Bayern the lead for good from 20 yards out.  Then in the 55th minute came the hat trick, a goal that took three tries to score.  Again open on the 6, Lewandowski took a pass and hit the left post with a right-footed shot, hit the rebound off the keeper with his left foot and finally used his right to tap in the loose ball.

That wasn't his best goal of the match.  After scoring a (relatively speaking) mundane goal on a shot from straight away in the 57th minute, Lewandowski took a cross from the right touchline and vollied it in from the 18 with a scissors kick in the 60th minute. 

"You cannot be that good!" screamed the English-language announcer.

Andrew Das has the story of Lewandowski's amazing feat  - with a video clip of each goal - in today's New York Times.  He reports that this was the fastest hat trick in Bundesliga history and the first time a substitute had scored five goals. 

Lewansowski was quoted by Das as saying, "It was a crazy few minutes.  I'm very satisfied."  And Bayern coach, Pep Guardiola, who coached a guy named Lionel Messi at Barcelona, said "I don't think I'll ever see something like that again."  Probably not.

Fall Means High School Soccer

Haddonfield Girls are still looking for their first win after yesterday's 3-1 loss to non-conference Group 3 rival, Winslow Township.  Well, at least we scored our first goal of the year.

The Bulldawgs were blanked by Sterling, 2-0 in the season opener on Wednesday.  Yesterday was the home debut in the Haddonfield Stadium and when Winslow's heralded Taziarra King (featured a week ago in the Inquirer) rifled a shot into the upper right corner just 8:44 into the contest, it looked like it might be another long day.  To their credit, Haddonfield girls, who started three sophomores and three freshman, settled down and took control of play.

In the 30th minute the referees seemed to miss a call that would have given us a penalty kick, but 8:13 before the half freshman Wayden Ay found the goal and it was 1-1 at intermission.  Given our momentum and the outstanding goalkeeper we have in Taylor Sehdev (who is bound for my alma mater, Gettysburg College) things were looking good - until King took control and scored twice within 1:38 to put the game out of reach.

Collingswood is on tap in the stadium Tuesday night.

I didn't get to announce the game because the wireless mike was left in the school, but no matter.  I'll be that much more ready for Tuesday's game.  More important, so will the players.  Given the youth of the team and the outstanding coaching staff we have, I expect we will see tremendous growth and improvement all season.

As an aside, in the "I really feel old now" department, the assistant of Winslow is Wesley Roach, who played with Scott for the Medford Strikers for a year or two at U12 and against him for the Evesham Outlaws in some classic South Jersey Soccer League Premier Conference games back in the '90s.