Bayern see off Frankfurt fightback to remain four points clear
24 May, 2020
Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich resisted a second-half fightback by Eintracht Frankfurt to claim a 5-2 win nowadays before Tuesday’s top-of-the-table clash at Dortmund.
Bayern cruised right into a 3-0 lead with goals by Leon Goretzka, the league’s top-scorer Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Mueller at the Allianz Arena before Frankfurt rattled the hosts.
“We clearly have to speak about that, that’s not on,” said Bayern midfielder Goretzka.
“We’ll be at 100 percent when we play there,” he added, looking forward to the Dortmund trip.
Frankfurt defender Martin Hinteregger bagged two quick goals from successive corners, volleying home and heading directly into make it 3-2 on 55 minutes.
Canadian teenager Alphonso Davies settled Bayern’s nerves by reclaiming a ball he lost in the region to fire home the hosts’ fourth goal with one hour gone.
Hinteregger then claimed an undesired hat-trick when he turned a Serge Gnabry shot into his own net to make it 5-2 on 74 minutes.
“That was the most beautiful - and hopefully the last - own-goal of my career,” said a sheepish Hinteregger.
“The two goals breathed new lease of life into us, but this shows the class of Bayern - they just shifted gears again.”
The win re-establishes Bayern’s four-point lead before going to second-placed Dortmund.
“We've set ourselves the goal of three victories this week,” said Mueller, with Bayern also at home to strugglers Duesseldorf next weekend.
This was the next weekend of the Bundesliga’s restart, carrying out a two-month hiatus, as the first top European league to resume through the pandemic.
A minute’s silence happened prior to the day’s five matches to keep in mind the victims of COVID-19, which has up to now claimed over 8,200 lives in Germany.
- Dortmund win away -
Dortmund claimed a 2-0 win at Wolfsburg with goals by Raphael Guerreiro and Achraf Hakimi.
Dortmund winger Guerreiro opened the scoring in the 32nd minute when he tapped home a cross.
The visitors had a let-off early in the second half when Wolfsburg winger Renato Steffen clipped the crossbar.
England winger Jadon Sancho helped secure the win when he dribbled at the Wolfsburg defence and laid a pass off to Hakimi, who fired home 12 minutes from time.
Wolfsburg had replacement Felix Klaus sent off for fouling Hakimi.
“We showed immediately after the beginning of the match that people wished to win,” said Dortmund coach Lucien Favre.
- Cut it out! -
Bayer Leverkusen built on Monday’s drubbing of Werder Bremen by upgrading to third place with a 3-1 win at Borussia Moenchengladbach, who dropped to fourth.
With the stands at Borussia Park filled by 13,000 cardboard cut-outs of home fans, Leverkusen’s rising star Kai Havertz, who scored twice in the 4-1 rout of Bremen, again netted a brace.
With seven minutes gone, Havertz, 20, darted onto Karim Bellarabi’s pass into the area and fired home.
French forward Marcus Thuram levelled for Gladbach just after the break.
Havertz netted a penalty soon after when the video assistant referee spotted a foul on Bellarabi in the region.
Defender Sven Bender unwittingly sealed the win when a free-kick struck his shoulder and flew into the net nine minutes from time.
Second-from-bottom Werder Bremen claimed their first victory in eight league games with a 1-0 win at Freiburg.
Midfielder Leonardo Bittencourt hit the winner in the 19th minute with a long-range shot.
In the dying stages, Bremen had defender Philipp Bargfrede sent off for a second yellow card and Freiburg had an objective ruled offside.
The effect leaves Bremen two points from 16th - which posesses relegation play-off towards the end of the growing season - but six points from 15th, which guarantees safety.
Bottom side Paderborn are now nine points from safety with seven games left after their 1-1 draw at home to Hoffenheim.
On Friday, Hertha Berlin thrashed neighbours Union Berlin 4-0 at the Olympic Stadium in the derby to go 10th.
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