RB Leipzig again knocked Bayern Munich from top spot in the Bundesliga table on Saturday night as their 2-1 win at home to Schalke 04 left them three points clear.
Carlo Ancelotti’s Bayern had regained the lead with a 3-1 win at Mainz on Friday night, but Leipzig replaced them less than 24 hours later. Bayern and Leipzig are set to meet at Munich’s Allianz Arena on December 21 in a mouth-watering pre-Christmas showdown.
A second-half own-goal from Schalke’s Bosnia international Sead Kolasinac sealed Leipzig’s win, their 10th league victory, extending their record unbeaten run to 13 matches in their first Bundesliga season.
Leipzig took an early lead in controversial fashion as Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Faehrmann conceded a penalty with just 19 seconds gone when the referee judged he had made contact with RB’s top scorer Timo Werner.
Replays showed the Leipzig forward dived, but Werner, 20, drilled in his eighth league goal of the season.
Faehrmann was booked to add insult to injury for Schalke. Werner insisted he told referee Bastian Dankert — who later admitted he made the wrong decision after watching replays — that there was no contact from Faehrmann, but went to ground from a push by Schalke defender Naldo. “I’m sorry that it looks like a dive, that wasn’t my intention, but there was a push from Naldo,” insisted Werner after watching replays. “I told the referee there was no contact from Faehrmann, but he didn’t listen to me in the heat of the moment.”
Long after the final whistle, Faehrmann was still fuming about the incident. “It’s enough to make you sick.
Werner told him (Dankert) that there was no contact and I still got a yellow card,” said the goalkeeper.
Schalke regained their composure and drew level when Bosnia winger Kolasinac drilled home a cross on 32 minutes. But the 23-year-old, who has been linked to Liverpool, turned the ball into his own net two minutes into the second half following a free-kick from Leipzig’s Emil Forsberg. Faehrmann tipped the ball onto the bar to deny a header from Leipzig defender Marcel Halstenberg 20 minutes from the end. With time running out, Schalke’s Brazil centre-back Naldo cleared off the line from Forsberg. This was Schalke’s first defeat in 13 games, dating back to the end of September, to leave them eighth.
Yesterday, Hamburg moved off the bottom of the Bundesliga table after securing their first league win of the season with a 2-0 victory at fellow-strugglers Darmstadt.
At the other end of the table, Ingolstadt, who lost 2-1 at Bremen on Saturday, are now bottom after Hamburg’s Michael Gregoritsch scored his third goal in two games to give his side a first-half lead at Darmstadt.
When Serbia winger Filip Kostic whipped in a cross with half an hour gone, striker Gregoritsch produced a superb diving header. In the dying stages, Japan international Gotoku Sakai sprinted clear, then slipped the ball to Matthias Ostrzolek, who blasted home on his left foot from the edge of the area on 90 minutes for his first Bundesliga goal. The result leaves Hamburg 17th, one place below Darmstadt, with both teams in the relegation places.
This was only Hamburg’s third win of the season in all competitions after winning both of their German Cup ties against low-league opposition. The result tales some pressure off coach Markus Gisdol. Hamburg are the only team currently in Germany’s top flight to have never been previously relegated since the Bundesliga started in 1963. They have stayed up in two of the last three years by winning a relegation play off, in 2013/14 and 2014/15. Last season, they finished tenth. On Saturday, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice as Borussia Dortmund prepared for their Champions League clash at Real Madrid with a 4-1 rout of Borussia Moenchengladbach.