Football
PA Sport 9y

Bayern Munich back on track with win, Dortmund beat Paderborn

Bayern Munich bounced back from their 3-1 defeat to Porto in the Champions League in midweek by taking another step closer to a third straight Bundesliga title thanks to a 2-0 win at Hoffenheim.

Sebastian Rode scored the opening goal for injury-hit Bayern, who added a second through an Andreas Beck own goal to take maximum points and extend their advantage over Wolfsburg, who play on Sunday, to 13 points with five games to go.

Borussia Dortmund responded to the news that coach Jurgen Klopp will be leaving at the end of the season with a 3-0 victory over Paderborn that boosts their hopes of getting into the Europa League.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Shinji Kagawa scored the goals for Dortmund, who are now just a point behind seventh-placed Hoffenheim, which may be good enough for a place in Europe next season.

Paderborn, meanwhile, could slip to the foot of the Bundesliga on Sunday if both Stuttgart and Hamburg below them win their games in hand.

Bayer Leverkusen moved above Borussia Monchengladbach on goal difference and into third place in the Bundesliga thanks to a convincing 4-0 win over Hannover which heaps the pressure on the Lower Saxony club's coach Tayfun Korkut.

Omer Toprak gave the hosts the lead and Julian Brandt added a second before the interval.

Hannover had no answer to a strong Leverkusen side, who added two more goals through Kyriakos Papadopoulos and Stefan Kiessling to climb a place in the table, leaving Hannover just two points above the bottom three.

Freiburg's late attempt to secure a late point fell short as they went down 3-2 at home to Mainz on Saturday.

Two goals from Shinji Okazaki gave Mainz an advantage at the break, but Admir Mehmedi gave Freiburg hope with just under 10 minutes left.

Yunus Malli restored the two-goal cushion for Mainz three minutes later, and it proved to be a crucial goal as Jonathan Schmid's effort at the death for Freiburg was too little, too late.

Hertha Berlin and Cologne took a point each from their clash at the Olympiastadion with the 0-0 draw seemingly satisfying both sides.

In a slow-paced, even encounter, it was evident that a point was all that either side really wanted to ease their relegation fears and not see their opponents pull clear in the Bundesliga.

Indeed, with the three sides below them in the table and in action on Saturday all losing, the draw gives them both a comfortable seven-point cushion over the relegation zone with five games of the season remaining.

Augsburg strengthened their claim for a place in the Europa League next season, moving five points clear of seventh-placed Hoffenheim thanks to a 2-1 win over Stuttgart which leaves their Swabian rivals inside the bottom two.

Tobias Werner gave Augsburg the lead before Daniel Ginczek levelled against the run of play.

Stuttgart had chances to take the lead but were punished by Raul Bobadilla's winner in the 73rd minute, falling to another defeat which leaves them in the relegation zone with just five games now to save themselves.

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