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  • Wednesday 13 May 2009

    Five horse race: Bundesliga reviews

    Karlsruhe 2-3 Hannover
    Wolfsburg 3-0 Dortmund
    Cologne 1-2 Hertha
    Bayern 3-0 Leverkusen
    Hamburg 3-1 Bochum
    Eintracht 0-5 Bremen
    Schalke 1-2 Stuttgart
    Energie 0-1 Monchengladbach
    Arminia 0-2 Hoffenheim

    The top five all won in the midweek round of fixtures, with defeat for Dortmund ending their hopes of Bundesliga glory. Wolfsburg, who look set to announce Tomas Schaaf as their new boss soon, bounced back from their trouncing by Stuttgart by dishing up a can of whup-ass on Dortmund. While the Wolves have rocked a bit away from home, their form at the VW Arena is quite incredible. Josué and Grafite linked up well to release Edin Dzeko, who has refound his touch up front, for the first on the quarter hour. Grafite got his 24th of the season, Dzeko this time turning provider with a superb through ball, with a first-time finish and, after Kevin-Prince Boateng was sent off, Grafite teed up Dzeko for his 22nd of the season with five minutes to go. That defeat ends Dortmund's slim hopes of a title as well as their seven-game winning run.

    Bayern, who have sealed a deal to bring Louis van Gaal in as manager next season, also won 3-0 thanks to three second half goals from Luca Toni, Franck Ribéry and Lukas Podolski who is finishing the season well. Hertha won too, though less convincingly, with Cicero giving them the lead and a massive deflection off a Patrick Ebert shot looping over Cologne keeper Thomas Kessler. Adil Chihi had a shot of his own deflected past Jaroslav Drobny in the last minute, but Cologne were well beaten. On Wednesday, Stuttgart maintained their challenge with a win over Schalke. Cacau got the opener for the Swabians and, though Ivan Rakitic equalised just before half-time, won it with Ciprian Marica getting the crucial goal. Hamburg remain a mathematical possibility, though heavy outsiders, with a win over Bochum all but sealed before the break by Paolo Guerrero and Ivica Olic. Olic's second really was the killer despite Paul Freier's consolation.

    At the bottom, Gladbach made it two wins in a week to ease three points away from the bottom three. They left it late though, with Danté heading in from a corner a minute into second half stoppage time, the win pushing Energie down into the bottom two once again. Karlsruhe have it all to do, five points from safety with two games remaining, after they blew a two goal lead at home to Hannover. Alexander Iashvili and Lars Stindl put them 2-0 up, but Sergio Pinto pulled one back thanks to a major blunder from Karlsruhe keeper Markus Miller. Mikael Forssell levelled it up on the stroke of half-time before Hanno Baltisch got the winner with 25 to go. Eintracht still need a point to be safe after they capitulated after right-back Patrick Ochs was sent off on 50 minutes. Torsten Frings scored the resultant penalty and added a second five minutes later. Alexandros Tzolis and Claudio Pizarro scored within a minute of each other before Hugo Aleida made it five with just over ten to go. Arminia remain in the relegation play-off spot after they lost to Hoffenheim who made it two wins in a row after waiting for so long to get off the mark in 2009. A defensive blunder allowed Wellington in for the 25th minute opener before Sejad Salihovic converted a penalty won by a Demba Ba dive which was so convincing that Andre Mijatovic was sent off as a result. With a bit of luck, the DfB will overturn the red card and retrospectively give it to Ba. The big cheating git.

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