Bayer Leverkusen cut Bayern Munich\u2019s lead atop the German Bundesliga table to eight points ahead of Wednesday\u2019s Champions League last 16 clash between the two, with a 4-1 win at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Bayern\u2019s comeback win over Stuttgart on Friday had sent them 11 points clear of champions Leverkusen.<\/span><\/p>\n Wanting to keep their slim hopes of defending the Bundesliga title alive, Leverkusen did not blink against third-placed Frankfurt, scoring three goals in a seven-minute blitz to grab hold of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n Nathan Tella latched onto a defence-splitting Granit Xhaka pass and slotted home after 26 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n Nordi Mukiele scored Leverkusen\u2019s second three minutes later, tapping a pinballing ball into the goal through a crowded penalty area.<\/span><\/p>\n Patrick Schick scored four minutes later, sliding in an Alex Grimaldo pass, his 16th goal in his past 14 games.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike took advantage of a poor pass from Mukiele to score on the 37th-minute mark.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the hosts starting the second half brightly, a cracking long-range effort from Aleix Garcia with 63 minutes gone sealed a crucial win for Xabi Alonso\u2019s side.<\/span><\/p>\n The loss continued Frankfurt\u2019s slide, with the Eagles having lost two from eight since Omar Marmoush departed for Manchester City.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2013 Dortmund win, Leipzig in freefall \u2013<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Serhou Guirassy scored as Borussia Dortmund boosted their slim top-four hopes with a 2-0 win at St Pauli.<\/span><\/p>\n Fresh from scoring four goals in a 6-0 demolition of Union Berlin last time out, Guirassy put Dortmund in front five minutes into the second half, tapping in a Karim Adeyemi pass.<\/span><\/p>\n Adeyemi put Dortmund in the driver\u2019s seat with an excellent solo goal eight minutes later.<\/span><\/p>\n The 23-year-old Adeyemi, one of the smallest players on the pitch, latched onto a long ball and used his strength to grapple past two defenders before slotting home.<\/span><\/p>\n It is the first time Dortmund have won two in a row in the league this season.<\/span><\/p>\n Dortmund, who host Lille in the Champions League last 16 on Tuesday, sit 10th, six points off fourth with 10 games remaining.<\/span><\/p>\n Guirassy has 24 goals in all competitions for Dortmund since arriving from Stuttgart in July, more than St Pauli have managed in the league all season.<\/span><\/p>\n A \u201crelieved\u201d Dortmund defender Nico Schlotterbeck praised his side\u2019s \u201cmature performance\u201d to Sky Germany, saying \u201cwe\u2019ve been working to get a second-straight win all season.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Leipzig let a one-goal lead slip to lose 2-1 at home against Mainz, who moved into fourth spot.<\/span><\/p>\n Xavi Simons gave Leipzig the best possible start, tapping in a rebound from close range after one minute.<\/span><\/p>\n Mainz turned the game in six second-half minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n One-time Germany midfielder Nadiem Amiri cut in from close range after 52 minutes and current national team striker Jonathan Burkhardt added a second six minutes later.<\/span><\/p>\n Leipzig have won just one of their past eight games in the league and are in danger of missing Champions League qualification for the first time since 2017-18.<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere, Wolfsburg kept their hopes of European qualification on track with a 2-1 win at Werder Bremen, thanks to a double from Patrick Wimmer.<\/span><\/p>\n Wolfsburg are seventh, one point and one place behind Leipzig, who occupy the final Europa League qualification spot.<\/span><\/p>\n A Robin Hack double and a Nathan Ngoumou goal took Borussia Moenchengladbach to a dominant 3-0 win at Heidenheim, drawing the Foals level with Wolfsburg on 37 points.<\/span><\/p>\n Heidenheim picked up a crucial win in their bid to avoid the drop, beating lowly Bochum 1-0 with Bayern-bound Tom Bischof scoring the only goal.<\/span><\/p>\n AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bayer Leverkusen cut Bayern Munich\u2019s lead atop the German Bundesliga table to eight points ahead of Wednesday\u2019s Champions League last 16 clash between the two, with a 4-1 win at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22435,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22433\/revisions\/22435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}