‘Wouldn’t Be Bad’—Viktor Gyokeres Teases Prediction for Robert Lewandowski Shootout

Arsenal’s Gyökeres received plenty of praise for a hat-trick to set up a mouth-watering clash with Barcelona star Lewandowski.

Viktor Gyökeres (left) prepared for a meeting with Robert Lewandowski by scoring a hat-trick. | Jose JORDAN/AFP/Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto/Getty Images

After sending Sweden to a World Cup playoff final with a hat-trick against Ukraine, it was put to Viktor Gyökeres whether he could replicate that feat for the showdown with Robert Lewandowski’s Poland on Tuesday.

“That wouldn’t be a bad thing, no?” he smiled back.

Gyökeres was tasked with leading the line for Sweden in the continued absence of Liverpool’s record signing Alexander Isak, shouldering a burden which hasn’t always been so easy to bear.

“A hat-trick is par for the course for him,” Gyökeres’s compatriot Anthony Elanga shrugged after Thursday’s 3–1 win. Well, not quite.

Arsenal’s hard-running frontman has only once before scored more than a brace at international level (he nabbed four in a thrashing of Azerbaijan back in November 2024). During Sweden’s winless World Cup qualification campaign, Gyökeres failed to score a single goal, let alone three.

Yet, this was a night for the 27-year-old to savor.

Viktor Gyökeres scored his second hat-trick for Sweden on Thursday. | Lukasz Germaniuk/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images

"Obviously Viktor’s performance was incredible,” Sweden manager Graham Potter gushed. “Outside of the goals, because to score a hat-trick is one thing, I thought overall his hold up play and his defensive responsibility for the team was part of an incredible performance.”

Potter’s Ukraine counterpart Serhiy Rebrov was similarly complimentary. “Gyökeres played great and made the difference tonight,” he admitted. “He showed his quality, why he plays for Arsenal and why he is one of the best strikers in Europe.”

Gyökeres and Sweden will be up against a striker who has boasted the status of the continent’s finest finisher for more than a decade in the one-legged World Cup playoff on Tuesday.

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Emotional Lewandowski Strikes Confident Tone

Robert Lewandowski we łzach po meczu z Albanią 🥺💔 pic.twitter.com/hpq7Robpdv

— Meczyki.pl (@Meczykipl) March 27, 2026

At the halfway stage of Thursday’s playoff semifinals, Sweden were set for a clash with Albania. However, Lewandowski helped inspire a second-half turnaround in Warsaw with an equalizer shortly after the hour mark before Piotr Zielinski sealed Poland’s 2–1 win in the 73rd minute.

In truth, it wasn’t Lewandowski’s best performance. Even the fitness fanatic cannot always stay out of Father Time’s cruel clutches.

Lewandowski is a decade older than Gyökeres and is very much in the winter of his career. Half of the Pole’s La Liga appearances for Barcelona this season have come as a substitute, with Hansi Flick deliberately managing his minutes before the business end of the campaign. That the 37-year-old was able to last 90 minutes against Albania is a testament to this carefully choreographed regime.

The emotion of the moment got the better of Lewandowski at the final whistle, his eyes welling up with tears of relief as those dreams of reaching another World Cup—surely the last of his career—remain alive.

“There are things to improve, particularly in our positioning,” Lewandowski conceded, looking ahead to Tuesday’s showdown with Sweden in Stockholm, “but in the end, what will count is qualifying for the World Cup.

“It’s even better when the first match isn’t a walk in the park. We’ll approach the final with a cool head and show our better side away from home.”

Quite where Lewandowski’s faith in Poland’s away form has come from is not entirely clear. Since Euro 2024, the Eastern European outfit has played seven competitive fixtures on foreign soil, with a record of W3, D2, L2. There was a hard-fought draw against the Netherlands in Rotterdam last September but Lewandowski and co. will have their work cut out keeping Sweden quiet if Gyökeres can replicate his heroics.

“Ultimately,” Lewandowski sagely concluded, “it doesn’t matter how we perform. What matters is that we simply qualify for the World Cup.”

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