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On Friday and Saturday, seven matches of the seventh round took place in the Bundesliga, after which a big intrigue emerged again in the fight for the first place. In the first 24th round matches, "Schalke" lost 0-2 at home to the "Hamburger" club, while their closest competitors, "Werder," won their round match and reduced the gap from first place to three points. The defeat against the in-form Hamburg club was already the second home failure in a row for the Schalke team. The hosts started the match better, but failed to capitalize on their chances, while "Hamburger" created only one dangerous attack in the first half. After the break, the Gelsenkirchen players continued to attack, but the visitors defended successfully, and even in the 71st minute, they broke forward when the captain of the harbor club, R. van der Vaart, took advantage of the opponent's mistake in defense. By the way, the Dutchman has been successfully scoring goals for four rounds in a row. At the end of the match, "Hamburger" took advantage of weakened Schalke defense and scored again after a counterattack, making the score 2-0. Having won their fourth consecutive victory, Huub Stevens' team jumped to the eleventh place, and they are now separated from the relegation zone by three points. The series of four unsuccessful matches was finally stopped by the "Werder" club, who crushed the bottom team "Bochum" 3-0 at home. The young club forward A. Hunt scored all three goals for the winning team: in the middle of the first half, after a pass from Miroslav Klose, A. Hunt only had to direct the ball into the empty net, in the 72nd minute, the second goal was scored from a sharp angle of attack, and after a few minutes, sending the ball between the opponent's goalkeeper's legs, the forward achieved a hat-trick. The victory allowed them to overtake the "Stuttgart" club in the tournament table, which was stopped for the second week in a row. This time, "Stuttgart" lost 1-3 away to the "Bayer" team. In the middle of the first half, the Leverkusen team played an excellent three-minute period and quickly gained a solid two-goal advantage. After the break, Juan successfully redirected Bernd Schneider's penalty kick into the goal, making the result overwhelming. At the end of the match, Cacau's header from 18 meters even managed to soften the result. Since the round was not successful for the "Schalke" club, the Stuttgart team is now separated from the first place by the same four-point deficit. The Munich "Bayern" team has not lost the chance to defend its title yet, as they defeated "Hertha" 3-2 away and reduced the "Schalke" lead to six points with 10 rounds left to play in the championship. In Saturday's match in the German capital, the brightest light shone on the Bayern forward L. Podolski, who scored a goal and created two more. Friday's statistics 0 - 2 71' [0 - 1] Rafael van der Vaart 80' [0 - 2] Ivica Olic Saturday results 3 - 1 20' [1 - 0] Andrej Voronin 22' [2 - 0] Paul Freier 62' [3 - 0] Juan 73' [3 - 1] Cacau 1 - 0 66' [1 - 0] Cedrick Makiadi 2 - 3 30' [0 - 1] Hasan Salihamidzic 31' [0 - 2] Lukas Podolski 59' [1 - 2] Carlos Gimenez 68' [1 - 3] Roy Makaay 82' [2 - 3] Dick van Burik 90' Josip Simunic ("Hertha") sent off 3 - 0 25' [1 - 0] Aaron Hunt 73' [2 - 0] Aaron Hunt 76' [3 - 0] Aaron Hunt 2 - 0 58' [1 - 0] Naohiro Takahara 74' [2 - 0] Michael Thurk 3 - 2 16' [0 - 1] Ivica Banovic 45' [1 - 1] Radim Kucera 50' [2 - 1] Jörg Böhme (penalty) 83' [2 - 2] Claus Engelhard 86' [3 - 2] Jörg Böhme
