Eintracht Frankfurt substitute Stefan Ilsanker on Wednesday scored twice in 10 minutes to complete a 3-0 win away to Werder Bremen, who stayed in the Bundesliga drop zone as their dismal home record continued.
Forward Andre Silva headed the visitors ahead in the 61st minute of a physical, trying match and Ilsanker took advantage of poor marking to turn in the second in the 81st minute, less than one minute after coming on. The Austrian also headed in the third eight minutes later.
Werder extended their winless league run at the Weserstadion — where they have won only once in the league all season — to 12 matches and stayed 17th in the 18-team table with 25 points from 29 games, two adrift of Fortuna Duesseldorf.
Photo: Reuters
Eintracht climbed to 11th in the Bundesliga table with 35 points.
The hosts had the better of the first half and towering striker Davie Selke twice got through, but was denied by goalkeeper Kevin Trapp the first time and then by a timely David Abraham tackle.
Werder thought that they had won a penalty when Abraham handled while challenging Davy Klaassen for the ball, but after a video assistant referee review that took nearly three minutes, officials ruled that the Bremen player was fractionally offside.
Photo: AFP
Frankfurt had a goal disallowed for offside after the break, but went ahead in the next attack.
Makoto Hasebe won possession in midfield and the ball was fed to Filip Kostic, whose cross from the left was headed home by Silva.
Ilsanker needed 19 seconds on the pitch to add the second when he was left alone at a corner and calmly side-footed the ball in.
He was again unmarked when he headed in from a free-kick to complete another unhappy evening for Bremen.
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,