Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted again as Borussia Dortmund scored three goals in the final 10 minutes for a dramatic 3-1 comeback win over 10-man TSG 1899 Hoffenheim on Sunday in the Bundesliga.
Hoffenheim captain Sebastian Rudy gave his side a deserved first-half lead in Dortmund before being sent off and the hosts were just 10 minutes from their first home defeat of the Bundesliga season.
The game turned when Rudy was shown a straight red card — on his 26th birthday — for bringing down Aubameyang, who was through on goal, on 58 minutes.
Photo: AP
Winger Henrikh Mkhitaryan spared Dortmund’s blushes with an 80th-minute equalizer, before substitute Adrian Ramos headed a Lukasz Piszczek cross home on 85 minutes.
Mkhitaryan then laid on the third when he sprinted clear, drew Hoffenheim goalkeeper Oliver Baumann and passed for Aubameyang to tap home in the second minute of stoppage-time.
It was the 22nd goal of the season for the Gabon striker, who is one behind the league’s top scorer, Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski.
“We started very well, but then we lost our way,” Borussia Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel said.
“We invested a lot in the win, so it’s a super nice and super important victory,” he said.
The win saw second-placed Dortmund to trim Bayern Munich’s lead at the top of the table to eight points before Saturday’s top-of-the-table clash against Pep Guardiola’s Bavarians in Dortmund.
Hoffenheim remain second from bottom and four points from safety.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Borussia Moenchengladbach went fourth after a fightback earned a 2-2 draw at Augsburg.
Brazilian striker Raffael had sent Moenchengladbach into a halftime lead before the game exploded into life with three goals in five second-half minutes.
Despite their midweek UEFA Europa League exit at the hands of Liverpool, Augsburg, who are 13th, roared back with two goals in quick succession.
Iceland striker Alfred Finnbogason thumped a header home on 50 minutes, his first goal since joining from Olympiakos, before Brazilian winger Caiuby slotted neatly home just three minutes later.
Moenchengladbach winger Fabian Johnson gave the perfect response when he smashed home his shot on 55 minutes to make it 2-2.
The visitors should have won when Oscar Wendt fired wide late on, while only a Marwin Hitz save denied Moenchengladbach captain Granit Xhaka.
FSV Mainz 05 warmed up for tomorrow’s league game at Bayern by going fifth with a 3-1 win at home to Bayer 04 Leverkusen, who had coach Roger Schmidt in the stands as he started a three-match ban.
Mainz’s Yunus Malli and Jhon Cordoba netted first-half goals, then Malli netted a second-half penalty, before Javier Hernandez pulled a goal back.
Schalke 04 dropped to seventh place after a goalless draw at Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday night.
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