Bayern Munich scored twice inside two minutes and hung on with 10
men to beat Schalke 2-1 and return to the top of the Bundesliga on
Saturday.
Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller struck in the 25th and 26th
minutes for Bayern, before striker Kevin Kuranyi cut the deficit in
the 31st.
Hamit Altintop was sent off the 41st but Bayern defended
stoutly in the second half to secure a one-point lead over Schalke
in the standings. Schalke also finished with 10 men after defender
Marcelo Bordon was red-carded in injury time.
"It was a very important victory, we had to win this game,"
Bayern captain Mark van Bommel said. "If we had lost, it would have
been very difficult to recover before the end of the season."
Schalke, which has not won the championship in 52 years,
would have opened up a five-point lead over Bayern with a victory.
Instead, Bayern now has 59 points and Schalke 58, with five matches
remaining.
In other games involving top teams, fourth-place Borussia
Dortmund beat Werder Bremen 2-1 to move within one point of Bayer
Leverkusen, which lost 3-2 at Eintracht Frankfurt after being
reduced to 10 men.
Also, Freiburg drew 1-1 with Bochum, Stuttgart rallied to
defeat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-1, Nuremberg beat Mainz 2-0 and
last-place Hertha Berlin revived its hopes of escaping relegation
by winning 3-0 at Cologne after two goals from Raffael and one from
Cicero.
Cologne finished with nine men after Youssef Mohamad and
Zoran Tosic received red cards.
Bayern's win followed up a 1-0 victory over Schalke in the
semifinals of the German Cup less that two weeks ago, although the
scorer of that winner, Arjen Robben, stayed home to nurse a calf
injury.
Ribery drilled in a right-foot volley from 14 meters (yards)
after being set up by Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mueller doubled
the lead after Altintop had dispossessed Rafinha in the 26th minute
and passed to Ivica Olic, who fed Mueller.
Rafinha made up for his mistake by providing the perfect
cross for Kuranyi's header in the 31st.
Altintop was sent off after earning his second booking for a
challenge on Rafinha. Altintop's first caution had come five
minutes earlier for shoving the linesman.
Bayern's central defender Daniel van Buyten had to leave the
game with a left-thigh injury in the first half and was replaced by
Martin Demichelis.
Although Bayern was a man down, coach Louis van Gaal
substituted both Ribery and Olic during the second half, with
Wednesday's Champions League second-leg quarterfinal looming at
Manchester United, where Bayern is defending a 2-1 lead from the
first leg.
Bayern allowed Schalke to have more possession in the second
half but Felix Magath's team could not find a way through Bayern's
crowded defense.
"We didn't allow many chances, not one in the second half and
we scored two nice goals so I am very pleased," said Van Gaal,
whose team ended a two-game losing streak in the Bundesliga.
"We closed the space, we knew Schalke has problems creating
up front. We are still in three competitions and that's incredible.
We won at our rival's stadium. But we have to play in Manchester on
Wednesday while Schalke can rest," Van Gaal said.
Magath all but wrote off his team's chances of clinching the
title after Saturday's defeat.
"We don't have the pressure any more of being the leaders and
none of my players now need to talk about the title after a game
like today," Magath said.
Kuranyi said Schalke lost a "very important game."
"We made too many mistakes, we did not play well at all. We
still have a lot to learn," said Kuranyi, who now has 18 goals this
season and leads the scorers' list with Stefan Kiessling of
Leverkusen.
Kiessling notched two in Frankfurt but it wasn't enough after
the dismissal of Daniel Schwaab in the 49th minute, three minutes
after the striker had given Leverkusen a 2-1 lead.
Selim Teber converted a penalty in the 28th for Frankfurt,
before Kiessling's two goals. But Caio scored with a spectacular
shot from more than 30 meters (yards) out that struck the underside
of the crossbar and flew into the net. Maik Franz then sealed
Leverkusen's third straight defeat with an overhead kick from close
range.
Dortmund moved on to 52 points, one behind Leverkusen, by
beating Werder Bremen with headers from Kevin Grosskreutz and Neven
Subotic, while Aaron Hunt scored for Werder. Werder remained fifth
with 48 points.
