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On Saturday, the 30th round battles of the German Bundesliga began. The second-placed "Hamburger" club managed to win away against "Duisburg," but it didn't add to the intrigue in the fight for the title, as the league leaders "Bayern" also successfully performed in this round, defeating "Arminia" at home with a score of 2-0. Both leading teams have four more matches to play until the end of the season, and the gap between the clubs remained unchanged – four points.
The match between "Bayern" and "Arminia" at the "Allianz" arena, like every Bundesliga match, was watched by an audience of 69 thousand fans, but the spectators had to wait for over an hour for the first goal. The visitors from Bielefeld broke the defense in the 69th minute when the team leader M. Ballack defeated the opponents' goalkeeper and scored the thirteenth goal of the season. Four minutes later, "Bayern" solidified their lead with a precise shot from the penalty area by veteran M. Scholl, who entered the game as a substitute.
By winning the match, the Munich club maintained a four-point advantage and took another step towards the Bundesliga champions title. In the next round, "Bayern" will play away against "Mainz," who drew away with "Eintracht" in this round and slightly improved their position.
Meanwhile, the bottom-ranked teams "Duisburg" could not withstand the "Hamburger" players, who are still hopeful of winning the title. The visitors from Hamburg took the lead after playing for just over twenty minutes when "Duisburg" defender U. Möhrle "gifted" a goal to his opponents – the corner kick lifted by T. Atoubo of the port city club hit U. Möhrle's leg and flew into the net.
Ten minutes later, after a brilliant pass from S. Barbarez, the result was doubled by Brazilian Ailton, who sent the ball precisely over the top corner of the "Duisburg" goal. By the way, it is worth mentioning that the guest in this match was R. van der Vaart, who was given the opportunity to rest for the next round's match by the coach's decision.
In order to continue putting pressure on the "Bayern" players, the "Hamburger" team can no longer share points, and it will be really difficult to do so, as in the next round, "Hamburger" will have to face the Leverkzseno "Bayer" team, who are in excellent form.
In this round, the "Bayer" club at home managed to snatch a victory against the very unsuccessful "Gladbach" players playing away and won their fourth consecutive victory. Meanwhile, "Gladbach" continued their streak of unsuccessful away matches – in fifteen games, the mid-table team managed to collect only eight points, which is one of the worst results in the entire league.
In the match that took place in Leverkusen on Saturday, both goals for the winners were scored by S. Rolfes, while the most productive striker of the away team, O. Neuville, stood out. After this victory, "Bayer" tied in points with "Hertha" and currently shares the fifth position.
Continuing to climb slowly from the bottom of the table is the "Koln" team, which narrowly missed causing a sensation in the match against the "Schalke" team. The visitors from Cologne led until the 80th minute, when Z. Bajramovic saved the "Schalke" team from a shameful defeat.
Saturday's match statistics:
2 – 1
11` [1 – 0] Simon Rolfes
48` [1 – 1] Oliver Neuville
84` [2 – 1] Simon Rolfes
37` Oude Kamphuis ("Gladbach") sent off the field
1 – 1
45` [0 – 1] Lukas Podolski
80` [1 – 1] Zlatan Bajramovic
`1 – 1
6` [0 – 1] Nelson Valdez
23` [1 – 1] Marian Hristov
0 – 0
0 – 0
0 – 2
24` [0 – 1] Uwe Möhrte (own goal)
30` [0 – 2] Ailton
2 – 0
69` [1 – 0] Michael Ballack
74` [2 – 0] Mehmet Scholl
