A pair of goals from Papiss Demba Cissé and one from Oliver Barth gave Freiburg a 3-0 win over last-placed Borussia Mönchengladbach in Sunday’s early game, lifting the hosts up into fifth place. Meanwhile, Stuttgart have sacked Jens Keller after a terrible run of results, and replaced him with Bruno Labbadia.
Mainz 05 vs. Schalke 04 Pre-Match Primer
The main event today, though, is Schalke 04’s visit to the Stadion am Bruchweg to face Mainz 05. Felix Magath’s side will be hopeful of taking something out of this game after beating Bayern Munich completely against the run of play last weekend and securing top spot in their Champions League group with victory at Benfica in midweek. The visitors will also be buoyed by their excellent record against Die Nullfunfer -- Schalke haven’t lost to Mainz since May 2006. Mainz looked set for a draw last week against Eintracht Frankfurt, and had been on a decent run of form, but a late Theofanis Gekas penalty gave Frankfurt a deserved victory, and probably ended any faint hopes Thomas Tuchel had of making a run for the meisterschaft.
Lineups:
Mainz 05: Wetklo; Heller, Fuchs, Noveski, Bungert; Soto, Polanski, Schürrle, Risse; Allagui, Ivanschitz
Subs: Müller, Caligiuri, Fathi, Karhan, Holtby, Kirchhoff, Szalai
Schalke 04: Neuer; Uchida, Schmitzs, Höwedes, Metzelder; Rakitic, Kluge, Jurado, Farfán; Raúl, Huntelaar
Subs: Schober, Edu, Jedrisek, Papadopoulos, Matip, Gavranovic (yes, only six)
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