Hamburg SV, the Bundesliga’s only ever-present team, scored two late goals to beat Nuremberg 2-1 on Sunday, as SC Freiburg pulled off an extraordinary 4-1 win at Eintracht Frankfurt as the fight to avoid relegation heated up.
The two results pushed five-time German champions VfB Stuttgart into the danger zone after they drew Werder Bremen 1-1 on Saturday and sucked Nuremberg back into the heart of the battle.
Hamburg, who climbed to 14th in the 18-team table, have 23 points, and are ahead of Nuremberg on goal-difference. Freiburg are a further point behind in the relegation playoff spot, while Stuttgartdropped to 17th, have 21 points.
Eintracht laid siege to the Freiburg goal, but the visitors went ahead completely against the run of play when Julian Schuster scored with an overhead-kick in the 34th minute following a corner.
The second half began in similar fashion, but Freiburg scored again in the 54th when Slovakia forward Karim Guede ran on to Admir Mehmedi’s pass and rounded Kevin Trapp to slot the ball into an empty net.
Joselu finally pulled one back for Eintracht just before the hour, only for Felix Klaus to run onto another Mehmedi pass and put Freiburg 3-1 ahead in the 70th minute with their third shot on target. Guede completed the win by finishing off yet another counterattack.
Hamburg and Nuremberg both created chances in an end-to-end game, but the game remained scoreless until the 80th minute, when Hakan Calhanoglu opened the scoring with a deflected shot for the hosts.
Mike Frantz turned Petr Jiracek’s cross into his own goal six minutes later to increase Hamburg’s lead before Josip Drmic pulled one back in stoppage time.
Hamburg have won two out of four games since Mirko Slomka took over as their third coach of the season.
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