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After playing six matches of the twelfth round on Saturday, the intrigue in the Bundesliga grew even more - the main contenders to win the title, the clubs "Schalke" and "Bayern", won important victories and took advantage of the misfortune of "Werder" to catch up completely with the league leaders.
The "Schalke" club easily dealt with "Mainz" at home and won the match 4-0. The team's strikers K.Kuranyi and H.Altintop each scored two goals. The first goal came in the 13th minute, when K.Kuranyi beat the opponent Dimo Wache after dribbling, and ten minutes later, after a successful move by Rafinho, H.Altintop easily directed the ball into the empty net. After playing half an hour, the hosts increased their lead to 3-0, when K.Kuranyi scored his second goal from close range with a header. In the second half, H.Altintop scored his second goal with a nice shot from the edge of the penalty area and completely buried the visitors.
After the victory, "Schalke" tied in points with "Werder" and only holds second place due to inferior goal difference. The Gelsenkirchen team could drop to a lower position if "Stuttgart" defeats "Hannover" on Sunday. It is worth mentioning that in the previous round, "Hannover" managed to beat the "Bayern" club away.
Bayern Munich had a lot of trouble in this round away against "Bayer" and only snatched victory in the last seconds of the match with a score of 3-2. With ten minutes left to play and the score tied, Athirson delighted their own fans by sending the ball into the net after a successful play by Andrej Voronin, bringing "Bayer" closer to victory.
However, just minutes later M.Demichelis redirected a cross from Willy Sagnol into Jorg Butt's goal with his head to equalize the score, and then three minutes later C.Pizarro's precise shot snatched the victory for the "Bayern" team. The win allowed the Munich club to move up to fourth place and reduce the gap from "Werder" to three points.
After a third of the championship matches, it is increasingly clear that this season the "Hamburger" team, at best, will fight for places in the middle of the table - after a successful last season, the team, which significantly refreshed its lineup, failed to beat the "Gladbach" team at home this round.
The "Hamburger" club took the lead in the 64th minute when Daniel Ljuboja received a pass and attempted a shot with his heel, the ball touched "Gladbach" player T.Levels and entered the goal. The visitors managed to snatch a point at the very end of the match, when O.Neuville scored from close range. It is worth mentioning that this was the first point won by the "Gladbach" team away from home.
All results:
1 - 1
66' [1 - 0] Tobias Levels (own goal)
84' [1 - 1] Oliver Neuville
4 - 0
13' [1 - 0] Kevin Kuranyi
22' [2 - 0] Halil Altintop
32' [3 - 0] Kevin Kuranyi
67' [4 - 0] Halil Altintop
2 - 3
33' [0 - 1] Hasan Salihamidzic
48' [1 - 1] Stefan Kiessling
80' [2 - 1] Athirson
83' [2 - 2] Martin Demichelis
86' [2 - 3] Claudio Pizarro
3 - 3
9' [1 - 0] Marko Pantelic
39' [1 - 1] Theofanis Gekas
45' [1 - 2] Zvjezdan Misimovic
48' [1 - 3] Zvjezdan Misimovic
59' [2 - 3] Dick van Burik
80' [3 - 3] Andreas Neuendorf
87' David Pallas ("Arminia") sent off the field
0 - 0
0 - 3
25' [0 - 1] Artur Wichniarek
63' [0 - 2] Sibusiso Zuma
84' [0 - 3] Marcel Ndjeng
League table:
