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Robert Lewandowski in a duel with Freiburg's Nico Schlotterbeck
Photo:
IMAGO/Blatterspiel / IMAGO/Jan Huebner
Fourth and first place in the table met with Freiburg and Bayern.
Above all, the race for fourth place, which entitles you to the Champions League, is a tight one.
Accordingly, Freiburg acted cautiously and initially positioned themselves in front of their own penalty area and let Bayern have the ball. This resulted in a – to put it mildly – calm first half.
This Freiburg tactic was gone at the latest with the Bavarian goal by Leon Goretzka, who headed in a free-kick cross from Joshua Kimmich after a mistake by keeper Mark Flekken (58th minute).
Then a duel of jokers developed.
Freiburg's Nils Petersen, already known for his risk of scoring after being substituted on, scored to equalize just 17 seconds after being brought in (63').
On the other hand, Serge Gnabry needed 33 seconds after coming on to put Bayern back in the lead (73').
Kingsley Coman (82nd) and Marcel Sabitzer (90th + 6th) made the decision.
Apparently, a mistake made by Bayern made a mistake in the final phase, causing confusion.
As Sky and the news agency SID report, there were at times twelve players on the field.
Only after minutes of discussion did it continue.
The win leaves Bayern at least six points ahead of Borussia Dortmund, who have to catch up against RB Leipzig in the evening (6:30 p.m., live ticker SPIEGEL.de; TV: Sky).
For Felix Magath it was the first game on the Hertha bench after his corona infection.
Under his assistant coach Mark Fotheringham, the Berliners had surprisingly clearly won against Hoffenheim before the international break.
Before the game at Bayer Leverkusen, Magath sent his team to a short training camp in Harsewinkel in North Rhine-Westphalia – and yet the start failed: Hertha's first-choice goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow hobbled off early with a thigh injury (16').
The next shock for the Berliners followed with Lucas Alario's wonderful opening goal (35th).
And it got even worse: After losing the ball, Leverkusen countered, Karim Bellarabi pushed in (40th).
Hertha almost responded in return with a goal from Vladimir Darida (43'), but that was all they managed to do.
Because of this - and because of the draw in the parallel game between Bielefeld and Stuttgart - the Berliners slip back to a direct relegation zone.
Stuttgart took the lead but missed too many chances: First, Bielefeld's Patrick Wimmer cleared a corner – with his upper arm.
Referee Patrick Ittrich looked at the scene on the monitor and awarded a penalty.
Sasa Kalajdzic certainly scored to give VfB the lead (25').
And there could have been another VfB goal, but Omar Marmoush shot just wide of the goal after a solo effort (40').
That was to take revenge: In the second half, Bielefeld's Florian Kröger equalized (59').
Stuttgart missed another big chance.
First Konstantinos Mavropanos headed against the post, then Atakan Karazor pushed the margin wide (78').
Two assists from the goalkeeper: Bochum's keeper Manuel Riemann initiated both of the visitors' goals worth seeing with long balls to attacker Takuma Asano.
Both times, Riemann played more than 50 meters into the run of the Japanese, who dribbled and then successfully finished (28th/59th).
A German national player equalized in the meantime: TSG full-back David Raum flicked into the corner in the second half (54').
In the final phase, Asano even celebrated a supposed third goal, but it didn't count.
A goalless game doesn't mean that there weren't any chances to score.
It was the same in Frankfurt, where bottom of the table Fürth missed a big chance through captain Branimir Hrgota (17th minute).
For the hosts, who meet FC Barcelona in the Europa League on Thursday, Jesper Lindström failed twice at Fürth goalkeeper Andreas Linde (42nd/44th).
It was also the keeper who cleared Goncalo Pacienca in the closing stages (80') - and secured the draw for the bottom team.
bka/hba