European roundup: Marco Reus sends Dortmund top with nailbiting late show

Marco Reus settled a five-goal thriller against 9-man Hertha Berlin in stoppage time at the Olympiastadion to lift Borussia Dortmund three points clear at the top of the Bundesliga.

Dortmund were twice forced to come from behind with goals from Thomas Delaney and Dan-Axel Zagadou that cancelled out a first-half double from Salomon Kalou, with his second coming from the penalty spot.

After Hertha’s Jordan Torunarigha was dismissed in the 85th minute, the visitors piled on the pressure, with Reus scoring his 19th goal of the season to make it 3-2 two minutes into stoppage time.

In a relegation battle, Hannover suffered a fifth straight defeat – a ninth in their last 10 league games – with a 3-1 loss against Augsburg.

Hannover made the perfect start, with Hendrik Weydandt capitalising on Augsburg’s inability to clear their lines by heading home from 15 yards. But that was as good it got as Augsburg staged a second-half comeback with goals from Sergio Córdova, Jonathan Schmid and André Hahn to lift themselves 11 points clear of the visitors.

VfB Stuttgart are now six points above Hannover as they eked out a 1-1 draw with Hoffenheim. Andrej Kramaric scored three minutes before the interval with a close-range finish but Steven Zuber salvaged a point for Stuttgart.

Schalke, who sacked head coach Domenico Tedesco and assistant Peter Perchtold on Thursday in the wake of the 7-0 hammering by Manchester City in the Champions League, crashed to a sixth successive defeat in all competitions losing 1-0 against RB Leipzig.

Under caretaker manager, Huub Stevens, who has coached the club on two previous occasions, Schalke failed to recover from Timo Werner’s 14th-minute strike.

Wolfsburg recovered from their 6-0 hammering at Bayern Munich last weekend with a 5-2 thrashing of Fortuna Düsseldorf in which Wout Weghorst took home the match ball with a hat-trick.

The visitors took the lead on the half-hour mark with a 20-yard free-kick from defender Kaan Ayhan, only for Wolfsburg to respond four minutes later thanks to Admir Mehmedi.

The home side then scored three goals in six minutes early in the second half to take complete control, with Weghorst’s first two sandwiching one from Robin Knoche. Although Düsseldorf pulled one back through Benito Raman in the 65th minute, Weghorst completed his hat-trick to take his tally to 13 for the season.

In Spain Real Madrid beat Celta Vigo 2-0 on Zinedine Zidane’s return as manager at the Bernabeu.

Elsewhere, Athletic Bilbao beat Atlético Madrid 2-0 compounding a terrible week for Diego Simeone after his side crashed out of the Champions League at the hands Juventus. Inaki Williams scored midway through the second half to hand Bilbao the lead and Kenan Kodro doubled the advantage late on giving Barcelona the chance to extend their lead at the top of La Liga to 10 points on Sunday.

Alavés strengthened their push for European football next season by beating struggling Huesca 3-1. Jonathan Calleri’s double and a late strike from John Guidetti made light work of La Liga’s bottom side.

source: theguardian.com