Hamburg SV striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga scored an eight-minute hat-trick to lead his side to a 5-0 rout of Nuremberg in the Bundesliga on Sunday.
Rafael van der Vaart opened the scoring in the 17th minute by meeting Heiko Westermann’s cross with a left-footed volley that Raphael Schaefer could not keep out.
Van der Vaart sent Lasogga through to shoot into the far corner in the 59th minute, three minutes before the Dutch midfielder sent in a corner for Lasogga to score again from close range at the far post.
Photo: EPA
“You can tell even if it’s only one game that we can play well,” Van der Vaart said.
Lasogga intercepted a poor pass from Per Nilsson and shot in off the post to complete his hat-trick in the 67th minute.
“I’m happy with the hat-trick, but I think the most important thing was the team performance,” the 21-year-old Lasogga said after scoring the quickest away hat-trick in 50 years in the Bundesliga.
With the home fans already leaving, Tolgay Arslan rubbed salt in their wounds by returning an attempted clearance from Schaefer for Hamburg’s fifth in the 74th minute.
“We didn’t play well at the start, we gave the ball away, but then we got the goal and that’s how football is — then we started to play,” Hamburg sporting director Oliver Kreuzer said.
It was Bert van Marwijk’s first victory as Hamburg coach since taking over from the sacked Thorsten Fink.
“I’ve only been here a week. I’ve always said I like offensive football, but there are tactics involved too,” the Dutchman said.
Hamburg had started the season with four points from six games. Van Marwijk has as many from his two games in charge.
“Five-nil. It doesn’t happen every week, but for us it’s incredibly important so the confidence comes back. With a victory it happens quicker,” Van Marwijk said.
The result piles the pressure on Nuremberg coach Michael Wiesinger, whose side are in the relegation zone without a win this season.
Freiburg are level with Eintracht Braunschweig at the bottom after a 1-1 draw with visiting Eintracht Frankfurt in Sunday’s late game.
Nicolas Hoefler scored with five minutes remaining to rescue the draw for the home side, who conceded through Christian Guenter’s own-goal in the 64th minute when an attempted clearance by Oliver Baumann rebounded off the defender.
“If you look at our last games you can see we’re always pushing forward, we’re playing well. We’re just conceding stupid goals,” Hoefler said.
Both goalkeepers made crucial saves. Baumann was the busier early on, blocking two shots from Vaclav Kadlec and then thwarting Constant Djakpa. Kevin Trapp denied Sebastian Freis in the second half, but was powerless to stop Hoefler from close range.
Frankfurt’s Johannes Flum was sent off for a second booking in the last minute on his first return since leaving Freiburg.
“Freiburg did it really well,” Flum said of his former side. “They deserved the point. We should have closed it out in the first half.”
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