Thirty-eight years old, and still the first name anyone in Warsaw looks for. Robert Lewandowski scored three times on Friday night as Poland took Romania apart 6-0 in the Nations League, a result that stopped being a contest long before the hour mark.
Romania had themselves to blame for the shape of it. Radu Dragusin, the Tottenham defender currently on loan at Fiorentina, was sent off in the 22nd minute, and from that point the visitors were simply trying to keep the score respectable. They failed at that too.
Lewandowski from the spot, then everywhere else
Six goals, and three of them his.
The opener came from the penalty spot. Lewandowski doubled the lead early in the second half, and after an own goal and further strikes from Piotr Zielinski and Jan Bednarek, he finished off the seventh international hat-trick of his career. That takes him to 92 goals for Poland, a tally that has stopped looking like a record and started looking like a wall nobody else is going to climb.
What stands out is not the finishing, which has never really deserted him, but the fact that he is still being asked to carry a night like this at his age. The former Barcelona striker was the difference again, in a side that has spent several years trying to find somebody else who could be.
A grim milestone for Hagi
On the other bench, Gheorghe Hagi is discovering that a second spell in charge of your national team is rarely the warm homecoming people imagine. Friday's defeat made him the first Romania manager to lose his first three competitive matches. For a figure of his standing in the country, that is an uncomfortable statistic to be attached to, and the red card will only partly explain it away.
Romania's attacking play never got going even before Dragusin walked, and conceding six away from home tends to raise questions that go beyond one refereeing decision. Hagi has time, but not an unlimited amount of it.
Where it leaves the group
Poland sit third in Group B4 after the win, Romania remain fourth. Neither position reflects a settled campaign, and for Poland in particular the margin between this performance and some of their flatter nights this year is wide enough to be worrying. Still, when you have a striker who can produce a hat-trick on demand at 38, the floor is higher than it would otherwise be.
Match facts: Poland 6-0 Romania, Uefa Nations League Group B4, Warsaw. Lewandowski (penalty, second half, and a third for his seventh international hat-trick), own goal, Zielinski, Bednarek. Romania's Radu Dragusin sent off on 22 minutes. Lewandowski now has 92 goals for Poland.
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