Goals have been the stock in trade of the Bundesliga ever since its inception in 1963 with some of the most exciting exponents of the gloried art of goalscoring surfacing in the last decade.

bundesliga.com takes a look at the insatiable goalgetters who have earned the Torjägerkanone for being the German top-flight's leading marksman in the last ten years.

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2008/09 Grafite (Wolfsburg)

When the demanding Felix Magath describes you as "a dream", you must be doing something right, and Grafite did a LOT right in Wolfsburg's historic title-winning season.

The club's fairytale triumph mirrored Grafite's own rise from selling rubbish bags to earn money as a youngster in his native Brazil to being named the Bundesliga's Player of the Year after a bumper campaign that brought him 28 goals.

A devastating partnership with Edin Dzeko produced a league record 54 goals with the duo ably and brilliantly assisted by Zvejzdan Misimovic. Remember that backheel goal in the 5-1 win over Bayern? You can bet Bayern fans do!

2010/11 Mario Gomez (Bayern Munich)

Say what you like about Mario Gomez — and you probably will — but the man knows where the goal is.

He had already made that clear at VfB Stuttgart — he was third to the Wolfsburg duo in 2008/09 — before he enjoyed the most goal-stuffed season of his professional career.

There were no fewer than five hat-tricks, including one in the 8-1 pummelling of St Pauli on Matchday 33, as he put Miroslav Klose in the shade and helped Bayern make light of the injury-enforced absence of Ivica Olic.

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2011/12 Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Schalke)

Gomez plundered 26 the following season, but fell prey to an even more predatory Hunter.

Playing alongside Raul, Schalke's Dutch forward claimed a hat-trick against Cologne in his second game of the campaign to set the ball rolling, mostly into the net.

Fifteen goals in the first half of the season boded well, and though the winter break appeared to have interfered with his aim, a furious flurry of 11 goals in his closing 10 Rückrunde outings saw the former Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan forward set a new record goals tally for a foreign-born player.

Watch: Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's top 5 Bundesliga goals

2012/13 Stefan Kießling (Bayer Leverkusen)

"He trains fantastically, is always fully committed and is absolutely a role model in the dressing room," Leverkusen coach Heiko Herrlich said of the long-serving forward, who ended his career and 12-year association with the club on the final day of last season.

Let's not forget: he was also a fine goalscorer.Second to Dzeko with 21 goals in 2009/10, Kießling looked an unlikely Torjägerkanone winner with just two strikes in his first six matches of the 2012/13 campaign, and he trailed Borussia Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski by three goals with just six matches left.

But a burst of seven goals in those remaining games saw the Germany international edge ahead and become only the second Leverkusen player after the legendary Ulf Kirsten to top the Bundesliga's scoring charts.

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*Translation: We say goodbye to a legend, the Football God

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2015/16 Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)

"He improved my finishing," Lewandowski said of former BVB boss Klopp, who would play one-on-one games against his frontline forward. "When I came to Dortmund, it wasn't so good. He told me to improve. He showed me what I had to do."

Dortmund fans probably regretted Klopp's TLC of their former hero as Lewandowski put that practice into devastating use in the colours of Bayern.

His mind-boggling five-goal, nine-minute blitz against Wolfsburg on Matchday 5 helped him to a comic-book tally of 12 goals in his first seven league appearances, but incredibly that still left him three goals behind Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at the mid-point of the season.

But while his former Dortmund teammate's shooting boots cooled in the Rückrunde, Lewandowski's remained just as hot. He scored five braces to become the first man since Dieter Müller in 1976/77 to reach the 30-goal mark and surpass Huntelaar's record for a non-German scorer.

2017/18 Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)

The pair would surely have taken their race down to the wire again but for Aubameyang's January move to Arsenal that left the way open for Lewandowski to claim the crown for a third time, a total bettered only by Bayern icon Gerd Müller.

After a plentiful Hinrunde that brought 15 goals, Lewandowski's form dipped only to rise sharply with hat-tricks in back-to-back home games, including the 6-0 dismissal of former club Dortmund on Matchday 28. Had his scoring touch not deserted him in the season finale against Stuttgart, he would have joined Müller as the only man to have scored 30 goals or more in three successive Bundesliga seasons.

Watch: All 29 of Lewandowski's 2017/18 Bundesliga goals

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