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Schalke stay on title track with 3-1 victory

Schalke 04 moved back level with Werder Bremen at the top of the German Bundesliga with a convincing 3-1 victory over local rival Borussia Dortmund on Sunday.

Goals from Christian Pander, Kevin Kuranyi and Peter Loevenkrands before a late Dortmund consolation gave Schalke their sixth victory in seven games.

Schalke and Werder Bremen both have 33 points from 16 games but Werder, who were 6-2 winners at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, have the vastly better goal difference.

The victory was important for Schalke after Werder's impressive win plus victories on Saturday by rivals VfB Stuttgart and Bayern Munich who remain third and fourth on 31 and 30 points respectively.

Schalke, who are unbeaten at home and had lost only one of their last 15 derby matches against Dortmund, went into a 14th minute lead when Pander's free-kick from 40m out sailed into the net.

Kuranyi took advantage of poor Dortmund marking from a corner to head in unchallenged from close range in the 25th minute, and Loevenkrands made it three when he slid in a shot from the edge of the area two minutes after the break.

Swiss striker Alexander Frei struck his sixth goal of the season with a long-range effort in off the post with eight minutes remaining to give Dortmund some late joy.

"It was an important win for us," said Schalke captain Fabian Ernst. "We really had to win after all the other top teams won their games yesterday and I think we did our job well."

"Dortmund had a lot of possession at the beginning without creating any clear chances and were were in control after 10 minutes," said coach Mirko Slomka. "We are getting forward very fast at the moment and were always extremely dangerous. You can see that we're able maintain a very high pace over 90 minutes."

In the day's other game, visiting Alemannia Aachen came from behind to defeat Wolfsburg 2-1.
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