Bundesliga roundup: Union stay within touching distance of the top, Mainz stun Leipzig
Union Berlin 3 Stuttgart 0
Sheraldo Becker set Union Berlin on their way to a hard-fought 3-0 victory over Stuttgart which closed the gap to the Bundesliga leaders to just two points, as Stuttgart’s winless league on the road reached 23 games.
Bruno Labaddia celebrated his 100th Bundesliga game in charge of Stuttgart, desperate for all three points away from home for the first time this season to potentially catapult them out of the relegation zone.
Against one of only two sides Labaddia boasts a perfect record against, his side started confidently and should have gone ahead through Juan Perea. It was an enticing Waldemar Anton cross from the right which, if connected with, would have surely found the net, but Perea’s timing was off and the ball cannoned off his shoulder.
With only one goal to his name so far this season it was clear Perea needed a slice of luck and he thought he had got just that on the half hour-mark. From an attack down the other end, Stuttgart goalkeeper Fabian Bredlow’s quick thinking saw the ball pumped long. Despite looking like a fairly simple clearance for opposite stopper Lennart Grill, the ball crashed against Perea and fell fortuitously for him to tap home in an open goal.
Agonisingly for the Colombian however, referee Florian Badstubner consulted VAR before ruling the goal out for handball.
Despite their recent downturn in form, it was difficult to predict Union would be as poor during the second half following a royal dressing down from Urs Fischer.
His side reacted almost instantaneously, first as Kevin Behrens dragged his effort wide, before top scorer Becker acrobatically fired Union into the lead, volleying home a whipped left-footed Jerome Roussillon cross.
Epitomising the old ‘game of two halves’ cliche, Union found themselves three up and in dreamland in consecutive minutes.
VAR once again intervened for a suspected offside as Behrens tapped home Union’s second, but luckily for the forward, his teammate had timed his run to perfection. Seconds later, Behrens wrapped up the win when forcing Genki Haraguchi to turn into his own goal to extend the home side's run without defeat at Stadion An der Alten Forsterei in the Bundesliga to 19 matches.
Flashscore Player of the Match: Kevin Behrens (Union Berlin)
RB Leipzig 0 Mainz 3
FSV Mainz 05 continued their remarkable surge up the Bundesliga table with an emphatic 3-0 victory against RB Leipzig at Red Bull Arena, a seventh match unbeaten which takes them within striking distance of the top six places.
Having experienced a scintillating restart to their Bundesliga campaign, Mainz have catapulted themselves from mid-table mediocrity to potential European elect. RB Leipzig, meanwhile, followed up their 7-0 UEFA Champions League capitulation to Manchester City with an equally disappointing defeat at Bochum, and the sides’ relative form was on display as the away side took the advantage with under 10 minutes gone.
Mainz had crosses flying into the box from both wings, and Leandro Barreiro Martins managed to fire in a shot from the centre of the box, with Janis Blaswich stretching to make the stop. However, no sooner was the Leipzig stopper back on his feet than Marcus Ingvartsen was there to break the deadlock.
With one eye on the European places and ahead against a direct rival, Mainz applied sustained pressure on the Leipzig goal. Ingvartsen had another chance, this time batted away by Blaswich before an unmarked Barreiro Martins headed against the bar from an Anton Stach cross.
Leipzig appeared somewhat shell-shocked, and while Timo Werner saw a chance saved just before the break, the pre-match favourites fell further behind after the break.
Ludovic Ajorque had been a nuisance to the Leipzig defence throughout the opening stages, and he produced a moment of brilliance as he sumptuously dinked a first-time volley over Blaswich, his third in the last five matches.
Mainz had scored an average of over three goals in each of their five wins since the Bundesliga restart, and Dominik Kohr ensured that they matched that tally here. Leipzig failed to clear their lines, and the former Frankfurt man lashed a powerful low drive into the bottom corner from distance.
Marco Rose encouraged his side to play further up the pitch, but they experienced little joy and instead were often left short at the back. Robin Zentner was impressive in the closing stages, and he ensured his side saw out a professional win.
After a first-ever Bundesliga win for Mainz at the Red Bull Arena, Bo Svensson will no doubt look forward to returning home to Rheinland-Pfalz for a matchup with Werder Bremen.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Dominik Kohr (Mainz)
Schalke 0 Bayer Leverkusen 3
Schalke lost a Bundesliga game for the first time since January, as Bayer Leverkusen kept up their pursuit of the European places with a 3-0 victory, closing the gap to the top-six to just one point.
Two of the Bundesliga’s most in-form sides collided chasing very different objectives at the Veltins-Arena. Schalke’s high tempo in the early going was overwhelming Bayer, although visiting goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky remained largely untested as the hosts failed to carve an opening.
Thomas Reis admitted he was wary of Leverkusen’s threat on the counter heading into this clash, and the speed of their attacks was handing them the more dangerous moments. Amine Adli was allowed the time to turn inside the area and fire a low shot at goal, but veteran shot-stopper Ralf Fahrmann reacted brilliantly to deny him and Jeremie Frimpong on the rebound.
Fahrmann continued to be busy as the interval approached, rushing off his line to thwart Adli once more, while Exequiel Palacios and Moussa Diaby went close with long-range efforts that drifted narrowly wide. A more effective strike from distance arrived after the restart, as Michael Frey’s effort took a wicked deflection and forced Hradecky into a smart stop.
That would prove to be a vital intervention as Xabi Alonso’s men went up the other end and charged into the lead. The lethal double act of Diaby and Frimpong combined once more, as the Frenchman slotted across the goal to hand his partner in crime a tap-in at the back post.
Leverkusen had their tails up and doubled their advantage on the hour mark through Florian Wirtz. After being hooked in the first half for Germany against Belgium, Wirtz responded in style, combining with Diaby and Adli before sliding home to cap a glorious goal for Die Werkself.
As Schalke pushed forward, they were carved wide open by Leverkusen and were fortunate not to concede a third. Frimpong surged clear of the hosts’ defence before teeing up Diaby, but the winger missed by a matter of inches wide of the post before he hit the bar on a similar break moments later.
Alonso needn’t be too disappointed with that though, as Sardar Azmoun scored a sensational header in stoppage time as his side extended their unbeaten run to eight matches as they close in on the European places, while Schalke missed the chance to climb out of the drop zone.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Florian Wirtz (Bayer Leverkusen)
Wolfsburg 2 Augsburg 2
Felix Nmecha’s last-minute header helped Wolfsburg recover from a disastrous first half to draw 2-2 against Augsburg as their winless run on the road extended to nine matches.
Wolfsburg’s bid to extend their unbeaten run to five was dealt an early self-harming blow when Arnold attempted to head clear an Augsburg corner but guided the ball into his own net.
The Wolves had no time to wallow in self-pity though and were given a lifeline as Augsburg defender Arne Maier clumsily tripped Jakub Kaminski in the area for a penalty.
Sensing redemption, Arnold stepped up to take the resulting spot-kick, although nerves got the better of Wolfsburg’s skipper, as he lashed his attempt way over the bar for a third penalty miss in his last six attempts.
The stroke of luck gave Augsburg a new lease of life, and Arne Engels played in Mergim Berisha soon after, with the forward striking low past Koen Casteels and into the bottom corner for 2-0.
Wolfsburg’s struggles were summed up as Omar Marmoush side-footed into the side netting from six yards out, and the Wolves' chances of ending a four-match winless run at the Volkswagen Arena slipped away quickly from there.
The hosts were often repelled by a stubborn Augsburg until Luca Waldschmidt volleyed in Patrick Wimmer’s free-kick with minutes remaining.
An equaliser seldom looked forthcoming, but with practically the last kick of the afternoon, Wolfsburg snatched a point via Nmecha, who latched on to a brilliant cross and got his head on the ball, putting it inside the right post for an unstoppable leveller.
Despite the hosts’ joy at snatching an unlikely point, this was a wasted opportunity for Wolfsburg, who remain on course to miss out on a top-six berth.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Arne Engels (Augsburg)
Freiburg 1 Hertha Berlin 1
Vincenzo Grifo moved himself to within two goals of Niclas Fullkrug at the summit of the Bundesliga scoring charts, but his opener would not prove to be decisive, as Jessic Ngankam plundered a late leveller to damage their hosts’ top-four prospects.
With the two clubs battling at opposite ends of the Bundesliga table, there was an expectation of Freiburg and top-scorer Grifo making a strong start. However, Hertha’s possession-centric play ensured that the Italian was forced to wait until the 26th minute to land Freiburg’s first effort on goal, but a direct free-kick fired straight at Hertha goalkeeper Oliver Christensen proved to be anticlimactic.
Hertha then fired a warning shot of their own, as a looping cross was met by Dodi Lukebakio, who could only head over the bar from close range. By now, the game was opening up, and Ritsu Doan in particular looked a menace with some jinking runs, though it was Maximilian Eggestein who gave Hertha the biggest scare before the break, firing wide from outside the box after the visitors failed to clear their lines from another Freburg free-kick.
With a staggering 42% of their season’s goal tally arriving via set-pieces, Freiburg’s uncharacteristic wastefulness from dead-ball situations would have been a talking point at halftime.
But in true Grifo fashion, the Italian took just five minutes after the restart to atone for his earlier effort in the trademark way, laying off a free-kick just outside the box to Christian Gunter, who stopped it and allowed Grifo to fire past a static Hertha wall and into the bottom-right corner for his 13th goal of the campaign.
At the other end, Hertha could well have equalised in the blink of an eye, with Lukebakio put clean through on goal by a long aerial ball that Freiburg’s backline failed to track. The Belgian looked certain to restore parity, but Mark Flekken raced out to deflect it wide with the mere toe of his boot.
Lucas Tousart then saw a header cleared off the line by Lucas Holer on the hour mark, setting Freiburg up for a tense finish. Jonathan Schmid also spurned a chance to seal the points, and he would rue that miss barely a minute later, finding himself beaten for pace at the other end by Ngankam, who fired low with ease past Flekken to snatch a point for Hertha.
Having travelled in the midst of the Bundesliga’s longest losing streak on the road amongst current top-flight sides, Hertha will treasure the point – even though it does little to alleviate fears of automatic relegation. As for Freiburg, this is certainly an opportunity missed. And it gets no easier, with a home clash against Bayern Munich seven days from now.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Vincenzo Grifo (Freiburg)