Stuttgart revive survival hopes with last-gasp win over Werder Bremen
Daniel Ginczek's 91st minute winner leaves Hamburg on the bottom of the Bundesliga following Stuttgart's last-gasp 3-2 win over Werder Bremen.
Christian Gentner opened the scoring before Davie Selke equalized just after the break. Stuttgart went 2-1 ahead on 70 minutes with Daniel Ginczek scoring his third goal of the season.
Werder Bremen managed to peg Stuttgart back with six minutes to play through their 20th set-piece goal of the season, headed in by Yannick Vestergaard. Yet the Stuttgart fans were left joyous when Ginczek charged through to make it four for the campaign and seal the win.
It's Stuttgart's second home win on the bounce that continues the resurrection of their survival ambitions and brings an end to Werder Bremen's four-match stint without defeat on their travels. Saturday's results saw Paderborn pick up three points meaning victory for Stuttgart was imperative to squeeze the bottom-half of the table even closer.
Inspired by a rowdy home support, Stuttgart started on the front-foot with the goal following a host of half-chances in-and-around the penalty box. It was precisely that, that helped Stuttgart to the opener -- Harnik's weak first-touch falling perfectly to Gentner who slammed the ball home with a sweet right-foot volley.
A minute later, Martin Harnik's cross caused havoc in the Bremen defense that just about survived a second hit as the ball rolled an inch ahead of Filip Kostic. But the lead was cut when five minutes into the second-half, halftime substitute Selke -- the striker has already agreed to join second division RB Leipzig in the summer -- threw himself on to the end of a Clemens Fritz's cross to score his seventh goal of the season.
Stuttgart needed to regroup quickly and on the hour mark, Harnik spurned two huge opportunities to send the hosts back ahead. Firstly, the winger was played in by Ginczek, and cushioned his shot over the bar and then a minute later he missed an open-goal at the back-post.
With 20 minutes left, Ginczek headed in the simplest of goals following some erratic goalkeeping from Raphael Wolf. Harnik was dismissed with six minutes to play, and Vestergaard's equalizer looked to have knocked the stuffing out of the hosts.
But in the first of three additional minutes, Ginczek poked home the winner to move Stuttgart on to 26 points, three away from safety.
