All of you Lewa stans need to relax with the hyperbole. An important metric is the number of professional games played, since it is ultimately the wear and tear of playing combined with aging that makes a player decline and ultimately, obsolete.
Messi is about 34.5 years right now and has played 977 games of professional football for club + country.
Lewandowski is 33.5 years right now and has played 874 games of professional football for club + country.
That's a gap of a 100 games as it stands, which amounts to 1.75-2 years. Lewa will be 35.5ish years by the same time he's played the same number of games as 34.5 year old Messi. We'll see what Lewa's level is like 2 years from now, but I have a strong suspicion it will be that of a 25-30 goal a season striker. Which is good for a 35-36 year old but nothing to write ballads about.
Now, CR7:
He's played 1,084 games for club + country at age 37.25. That's a gap of 210 games to Lewa or 3.5-4 years of professional football. Lewa will be 38 by the time he's played the same amount of games as a 37 year old CR7.
People here are underestimating the sheer amount of mileage CR7 (obvious) and Messi (not so obvious) have gone through. Messi, in particular has managed nearly a 1,000 professional games despite taking on 2-3-4 challenges on the regular during dribbles in his prime. Lewa battles with CBs but it's upper body battle for the most part and not the legs. I'm not not factoring that Messi and CR7 played in generally tougher leagues, strength wise compared to Lewa and for tougher NTs, especially in Messi's case with those South American butchers and 6,000 feet elevation stadiums.
Conclusion: Lewa is an elite athlete but I'm not even convinced he's better than Messi or CR7 as strictly athletes over the course of his career, especially CR7. For me, the greatest football athlete, even better than CR7 who I have as no.2 is Maldini.
yep, working for his peak at 40