BERLIN, May 25 — Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich resisted a second-half fightback by Eintracht Frankfurt to claim a 5-2 win behind closed doors ahead of tomorrow's top-of-the-table clash at Dortmund.
Bayern cruised 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 need to talk about that, that’s not on,” said Bayern midfielder Goretzka.
“We’ll be at 100 per cent when we play there,” he added, looking ahead to the Dortmund trip.
Frankfurt defender Martin Hinteregger bagged two quick goals from successive corners, volleying home and then heading in to make it 3-2 on 55 minutes.
Canadian teenager Alphonso Davies settled Bayern’s nerves by reclaiming a ball he lost in the area to fire home the hosts’ fourth goal with an hour gone.
Hinteregger then claimed an unwanted 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 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 travelling to second-placed Dortmund.
“We have set ourselves the goal of three victories this week,” said Mueller, with Bayern also at home to strugglers Duesseldorf next weekend.
This was the second weekend of the Bundesliga’s restart, following a two-month hiatus, as the first top European league to resume during the pandemic.
A minute’s silence was held before the day’s five matches to remember the victims of Covid-19, which has so far 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 right after the start of the match that we wanted to win,” said Dortmund coach Lucien Favre.
Cut it out!
Bayer Leverkusen built on Monday’s drubbing of Werder Bremen by moving up 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 area.
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 a goal ruled offside.
The result leaves Bremen two points from 16th — which carries a relegation play-off at the end of the 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. — AFP
