Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored one goal and set up two — despite being hit by an object thrown from the stands before the match — to help Borussia Dortmund win 3-1 against Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
The Armenia midfielder was not hurt in the incident, which happened after the warmup ahead of the match. The perpetrator was apprehended and taken out of the stadium. The object appeared to be crumpled cardboard.
Marco Reus scored twice as Dortmund used the opportunity to reduce Bayern Munich’s lead to five points following the defending champion’s 0-0 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday. Bayern dropped their first points after opening the season with 10 consecutive wins.
Photo: Reuters
Borussia Moenchengladbach earned their sixth straight Bundesliga victory under interim coach Andre Schubert by winning 4-1 at Hertha Berlin. Schubert became the first Moenchengladbach coach to start his tenure with six league wins, while Berlin fell to their first home defeat of the season.
Oscar Wendt, Raffael, Granit Xhaka from a penalty and Harvard Nordveit scored for Moenchengladbach to strengthen Schubert’s case for a permanent job. Alexander Baumjohann converted a penalty for Berlin.
In other matches, Yoshinori Muto scored a hat-trick as Mainz settled for a 3-3 draw against last-place Augsburg despite leading 2-0; Hoffenheim drew 0-0 at Cologne under new coach Huub Stevenes; and Schalke salvaged a 1-1 draw with promoted Ingolstadt on a late goal by Leroy Sane.
In the late match, Wolfsburg beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 to push past Schalke into third place, 10 points behind Bayern.
Leverkusen benefited from a wrong call, when Nicklas Bendtner scored in the 34th after an offside. The referee overruled the linesman, who had raised his flag. Replays showed that the ball had been played by Andre Schuerrle and not Leverkusen’s Kevin Kampl before it reached Vieirinha, who was offside as he passed to Bendtner.
Leverkusen equalized six minutes later through Javier “Cicharito” Hernandez, who headed in from close range from a cross by Christoph Kramer.
The winner came from Julian Draxler in the 77th. Bernd Leno could not hold onto a shot by Ricardo Rodriguez, Bas Dost squared the rebound for Draxler to knock in from close range, Draxler and Dost had come off the bench four minutes earlier.
In Bremen, Reus used a good pass from Mkhitaryan to score nine minutes into the match, before Anthony Ujah pulled level for Bremen with his fourth goal in three matches.
Mkhitaryan put Dortmund ahead again by connecting at the far post with a cross from Mats Hummels for a good header before the break and Reus completed Dortmund’s third straight victory in the 72nd.
In Augsburg, the home side battled back from a two-goal deficit to turn the match on goals from Paul Verhaegh’s penalty, former Mainz player Koo Ja-cheolo and Raul Bobadilla in the 82nd. However, Muto grabbed the equalizer in the third minute of stoppage time.
Sane struck in the 77th minute to cancel out Tobias Levels’ first-half goal as Schalke struggled against Ingolstadt following two straight defeats to Moenchengladbach in the Bundesliga and in the German Cup.
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
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