Bayern Munich bounced back from their midweek Manchester City defeat with a 3-1 win over Hamburg SV in the Bundesliga on Saturday, while Borussia Dortmund suffered a Champions League hangover.
Bayern slumped to their first defeat since July on Tuesday when they were beaten 3-2 at home by City in the Champions League, but still went through as group winners to the event’s last 16.
Bayern recovered on their return to league duty at the Allianz Arena with goals by Mario Mandzukic and Mario Goetze, before Swiss winger Xherdan Shaqiri added the third deep into extra-time.
Bayern surrendered their record 10-match Champions winning streak, but the victory over Hamburg extended their record unbeaten run in the Bundesliga to 41.
Despite starting with winger Franck Ribery and leftback David Alaba on the bench, and with captain Philipp Lahm and star midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger out injured, Bayern still started with 10 internationals.
Mandzukic put the Bavarians ahead with his tenth goal of the season with 42 minutes gone when he headed home Rafinha’s superbly volleyed cross after a long ball from Toni Kroos.
Goetze added the second when he hit the top left corner with 52 minutes on the clock, before making way for Ribery.
Hamburg striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga celebrated his 22nd birthday a day early with Hamburg’s consolation goal on 87 minutes, when he crashed his shot past Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.
Dortmund had to fight back from two goals down to draw 2-2 at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.
Striker Sven Schipplock and right-winger Kevin Volland gave Hoffenheim a 2-0 lead, before Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang gave Borussia hope when he hit his ninth goal of the season.
Poland rightback Lukasz Piszczek scored his first goal of the season to equalize when he stabbed home a rebound after a curling Nuri Sahin cross.
The point was enough for Dortmund to hold onto third place and they sit level on 32 points with fourth-placed Borussia Moenchengladbach, who were held to a goalless draw by FSV Mainz 05.
VfL Wolfsburg enjoyed a 3-1 win at home to VfB Stuttgart, as Swiss defender Ricardo Rodriguez and Brazilian Diego crashed in free-kicks before Croatia’s Ivan Perisic added a third late on.
The victory keeps Wolfsburg in fifth and closes the gap between fourth-placed Moenchengladbach to three points, while Stuttgart stay in 10th.
Nuremberg kept the tag of being the only team in a major European league without a win when they drew 3-3 at Hannover 96, as the hosts fought back with three goals in the final 30 minutes.
Eintracht Braunschweig remained at the bottom of the league when they lost 4-1 at Augsburg.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
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