Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored one goal and set up another for Borussia Dortmund in their 3-1 victory at Borussia Moenchengladbach which saw them keep pace with Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich on Saturday.
Both sides hit the crossbar early on — Andreas Christensen for Moenchengladbach, Ilkay Gundogan for Dortmund — before Marco Reus finally broke the deadlock in the 41st minute.
Gundogan played a brilliant pass for the Germany winger to slot clinically inside the far post beyond the helpless Yann Sommer.
Photo: AP
“I had many nice years here, it was a sign of respect. I owe this club a lot,” Reus said of the heart sign he made after scoring against his former club.
Reus also had a hand in the next goal in the 50th minute, when Mkhitaryan thought he had sealed it for the visitors. Mats Hummels won the ball from Ibrahima Traore and it went from Gundogan to Reus, who drew three defenders toward him before finding the unmarked Mkhitaryan to scoop the ball into the net.
Raffael pulled one back eight minutes later to rekindle the contest, sparking chances at both ends, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang going close for Dortmund, before Sokratis Papastathopoulos made a crucial tackle to deny Traore.
Aubameyang missed a good chance to seal it, before Mkhitaryan set up Gundogan to do just that in the 75th minute.
Jonas Hofmann, who joined Moenchengladbach from Dortmund in the winter break, missed a late chance for the hosts.
“We made a few mistakes that you cannot make against a team as good as Dortmund. Then up front we had a few chances that we didn’t take and the two things come together,” Moenchengladbach coach Andre Schubert said after his first league defeat at home.
Dortmund stayed eight points behind Bayern, who won 2-1 at Hamburg SV on Friday and have only dropped four points so far, and moved 12 points clear of fourth-placed Moenchengladbach.
Earlier, striker Hugo Almeida scored on his return to the Bundesliga, but could not prevent his new club Hannover 96 from slumping to a 2-1 home loss to SV Darmstadt 98.
Almeida, who joined from Anzhi Makhachkala during the winter break, scored 10 minutes into his debut, only for Sandro Wagner to equalize from close range and then convert the rebound after Jan Rosenthal’s header struck the post after halftime.
Hannover are bottom after their seventh defeat in nine games at home.
“We handled many situations and answered many questions well, but sometimes there was also a question mark too many for us,” Hannover coach Thomas Schaaf said after his first game in charge.
The former Werder Bremen coach took charge of the struggling side on Dec. 28 last year and signed Almeida on Jan. 16. The Portuguese striker enjoyed a successful three-and-a-half seasons under Schaaf at Bremen until 2010.
VfB Stuttgart came from behind to win 3-1 at Cologne and climb out of the relegation zone.
Cologne went ahead through Anthony Modeste’s penalty, only for Daniel Didavi to equalize before the interval. Timo Werner headed Stuttgart in front in the second half and Christian Gentner sealed it late on.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen captain Omer Toprak scored with 15 minutes remaining to salvage a 1-1 draw at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, who opened the scoring through Jiloan Hamad’s fine strike.
Also on Saturday, Ingolstadt 04 defeated FSV Mainz 05 1-0 at home thanks to Moritz Hartmann’s penalty, while Hertha BSC played out a scoreless draw with Augsburg, enough to stay third, eight points behind Dortmund.
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