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Until the end of the German national football championship, with nine rounds left, the intrigue returned to the fight for the title - on Sunday evening, "Hamburger" at home achieved a 3-0 victory against the "Kaiserslautern" club and reduced the gap from the leading "Bayern" to six points.
The match in Hamburg started 75 minutes later than planned, as there was a lot of snow on the stadium roof and the referee did not allow the match to start. This greatly angered "Kaiserslautern" coach W. Wolf, as the problem was already known on Sunday morning, but the snow was not cleared from the stadium roof and due to the delayed match, the "Kaiserslautern" team missed their flight. According to representatives of "Hamburger," the match referee warned that the snow should have been cleared on Sunday morning, but the helicopter called to do this job did not solve the problem, so the stadium was not ready for the match to start. Fortunately, the situation was saved by the Hamburg fire department, who cleared the stadium roof and the match finally started.
The first part of the match was not very active, so after the break, the home team coach T. Dollas tried to liven up the game and substituted B. Lauth instead of N. Takahara, and G. Demel replaced R. Wicky. Soon these substitutions paid off, and in the 55th minute after an attack involving both substitutes, the "Hamburger" team took the lead. Just six minutes later, another goal was scored in the visitors' goal - R. van der Vaart crossed the ball into the penalty area, S. Barbarez couldn't redirect the ball into the net, but the visitors' defender helped him by deflecting the ball with his head into his own goal, doubling the home team's lead. At the end of the match, "Hamburger" scored a third goal when R. van der Vaart scored from a questionable eleven-meter penalty.
In the other evening duel, the "Schalke" and "Eintracht" clubs met. The hosts won with a score of 2-0, with goals scored by S. Larsen and E. Sand. For most of the season, "Schalke" did not interfere in the fight for the lead, but successfully collected points, took advantage of the failures of the top three teams, and after this victory, the club finally rose to third place, which gives them the opportunity to fight in the Champions League playoffs. After the winter break, "Schalke" is demonstrating excellent form - in the second half of the season, they have won six out of eight matches and played to a draw twice. "Schalke" is eight points behind the leading "Bayern" club, but next weekend this gap could be even smaller, as these two teams will face each other in a duel in Munich.
Sunday Statistics
3 - 0
55` [1 - 0] Benjamin Lauth
61` [2 - 0] Fabian Schönheim (own goal)
86` [3 - 0] Rafael van der Vaart (from the penalty spot)
2 - 0
52` [1 - 0] Sören Larsen
90` [2 - 0] Ebbe Sand
