Schalke 04 are up to third in the Bundesliga after Peru’s Jefferson Farfan and Georgia’s Levan Kobiashvili scored in the 2-1 win over Cologne on Sunday, while Hamburg stay top of the league.
Farfan headed Schalke into the lead after just two minutes, but Cologne, who are still chasing their first win of the season since promotion, equalized when Lukas Podolski scored his first league goal since returning from Bayern Munich.
But Schalke took the three points when Kobiashvili scored immediately after the break to pick up their fifth win in seven games.
“I was nervous for the last half hour,” said Schalke coach Felix Magath. “But I am happy that we were able to weather this pressure. For the young team we have I think it was fine today.”
Werder Bremen were held to a 0-0 draw at home to midtable Hanover to leave them sixth.
Hanover’s Florian Fromlowitz, substituting for Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke who is suffering from an infection, denied the hosts on half a dozen occasions.
Bremen laid a second-half siege in the Hanover defense but Per Mertesacker had a point-blank header kicked off the line by defender Steven Cherundolo.
Tim Borowski’s long-range effort flew wide and Marko Marin’s drive was blocked well by Fromlowitz.
The 23-year-old keeper denied Claudio Pizarro’s double strike in the 58th and then blocked the Peruvian’s next effort minutes later.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
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