Midfielders Marco Reus and Jonas Hofmann’s late goals sealed Borussia Dortmund’s 2-1 home win over Eintracht Braunschweig to leave the Champions League runners-up top of the Bundesliga yesterday.
The 21-year-old Hofmann grabbed the limelight from Dortmund’s record-signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who made his debut after costing 27.5 million euros (US$36.6m) from Shakhtar Donetsk, when he broke the deadlock seven minutes after coming on. Hofmann replaced Dortmund’s other key signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang then took a crisp return pass from defender Mats Hummels to drill his shot in off the far post on 75 minutes.
Hofmann was then fouled in the area five minutes from time allowing Reus to drill home the penalty for Dortmund’s second before Braunschweig pulled one back when Kevin Kratz’s 89th-minute corner deflected in off Borussia’s Poland striker Robert Lewandowski. It was not the way Lewandowski, Dortmund’s top-scorer last season with 24 goals in 31 league games, would have wanted to celebrate his 100th top flight match, while coach Jurgen Klopp enjoyed his 100th German league win with Borussia.
After Aubameyang hit a hat-trick on his German league debut in last weekend’s 4-0 rout of Augsburg, the three points leave Dortmund top of the table on goal difference with European champions Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen in joint second.
Earlier, Japan midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake crashed in an 89th-minute free-kick to rescue a point in Nuremberg’s 2-2 draw with Hertha Berlin. Hosts Nuremberg had taken a 40th-minute lead when striker Daniel Ginczek held off two defenders to set up Swiss striker Josip Drmic to blast his shot home. Berlin drew level when Tunisia striker Sami Allagui’s shot bounced in off the chest of Nuremberg centre-back Berkay Dabanli on 61 minutes.
Brazilian midfielder Ronny then netted a 79th-minute penalty for Hertha before Kiyotake’s late leveller shared the points. On Saturday, defending champions Bayern laboured to a 1-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt while both Hamburg and Schalke 04 suffered heavy defeats which left Leverkusen in second after their 1-0 win at VfB Stuttgart. There was more bad news for Schalke on Sunday as Holland striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar was ruled out for the next four weeks after tearing medial ligaments in his right knee.
Schalke will be without Huntelaar for their Champions League play-off, first-leg, at home to Greece’s PAOK on Wednesday.
Hamburg were humiliated 5-1 at home by Hoffenheim as Brazilian striker Roberto Firmino ran riot, scoring twice and setting up the other three.
