Werder Bremen suffered their second defeat of the season when they lost 3-2 at Hannover 96 on Sunday thanks to a Mohammed Abdellaoue hat-trick to stay three points behind leaders Bayern Munich.
In the only other match played on Sunday, Schalke 04’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored twice in their 2-1 win at Hamburg SV to lift them to fourth on 15 points, four behind Bayern.
Second-placed Werder had scorer Marko Arnautovic sent off in the 78th minute for stepping on Sergio Pinto.
Photo: EPA
Bremen were quickly a goal down when Norwegian Abdellaoue converted a third-minute penalty.
The 25-year-old forward added another goal in the 38th minute, before Austrian Arnautovic pulled one back on the stroke of halftime when he rifled in a low shot.
Hannover, who also won their Europa League match against Vorskla Poltava in Ukraine last week, responded on the hour with Abdellaoue completing his hat-trick and scoring his sixth league goal of the season when he tapped in a cross from close range.
Claudio Pizarro, who had hit the post in the 48th minute, thundered in a volley with seven minutes left to give his 10-man team some hope, but they failed to find the equalizer.
Schalke, with new coach Huub Stevens on the bench, took a 13th-minute lead when Huntelaar wrong-footed Hamburg goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny with a header.
The hosts battled back when Croat Mladen Petric fired in from the left for the equalizer.
Spaniard Raul came close for Schalke early in the second half, but Huntelaar was on target in the 73rd minute.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB