Borussia Dortmund opened a four-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga on Sunday with an impressive 4-0 win at 10-man Hannover 96 as Jurgen Klopp’s young side ran riot.
With second-placed Mainz losing at Freiburg on Saturday, Dortmund are now well clear of their main rivals and have a nine-point lead over third-placed Frankfurt thanks to their win in Hannover.
“The victory was deserved, even if the score is a little bit too high,” Dortmund coach Klopp said. “We deserved to be 2-0 up, but then Hannover lost a little of their belief.”
“In the first half, we played very well, but afterwards we allowed them to come back into the game,” he said.
Shinji Kagawa scored his fifth goal of the season when he put Dortmund ahead after dribbling his way into the penalty area and fired home after just 11 minutes.
Lucas Barrios then made it 2-0 win a superb goal on 72 minutes when he completed a flowing attack that split the hosts’ defense and converted Lukasz Piszczek’s cross and beat two defenders to the ball.
Barrios earned a yellow card for his overenthusiastic celebrations.
Hannover defender Karim Haggui was shown a straight red on 77 minutes for kicking Dortmund’s Jakub Blaszczykowski in the head in the area and Borussia were awarded a spot-kick.
Turkey midfielder Nuri Sahin had his penalty saved, but Blaszczykowski had the final word when he scored his side’s fourth goal in added time.
In other matches on Sunday, fifth-placed Bayer Leverkusen defeated Kaiserslautern at home 3-1, while second-from-bottom hosts Stuttgart crushed struggling Werder Bremen 6-0.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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