Schalke 04 took over the provisional lead in the Bundesliga with a 1-0 home victory over Mainz thanks to Jefferson Farfan’s early goal on Friday.
Farfan scored after 12 minutes to give Schalke their Bundesliga-best 10th win of the season and Felix Magath’s team now have 34 points from 17 matches.
The Blues have a two-point lead over Bayer Leverkusen, who can secure the symbolic fall title — winners of the season’s first half — with a victory against Borussia Moenchengladbach later this weekend.
Despite a third straight win, Magath wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“We made things tough for them,” he said. “It would have been good to use our chances to make things less exciting at the end. After such a strong start, we had to have scored another goal. We are missing the killer instinct.”
Mainz remained on 24 points in eighth place and despite five games without a victory, Thomas Tuchel’s men are the best promoted side in the league after the first half of the season.
“We played our worst game of the season and we deserved to lose. The entire team had a bad day,” Mainz captain Tim Hoogland said. “This was just a bad game for us and it’s disappointing to go into the winter break with such a performance.”
Schalke nearly pulled ahead after 10 minutes, but Ivan Rakitic sent his header over the bar.
Farfan, however, passed in from the right wing and the ball landed at 19-year-old Lewis Holtby, who returned the ball into the area to a streaking Farfan, who sneaked the ball around keeper Heinz Muller.
Heiko Westermann missed a golden chance to double the advantage after 20 minutes and Rakitic’s corner kick struck the crossbar a minute later. Westermann was again just off target after 65 minutes and Muller made a fine save in the last minute.
RSS