Bundesliga Week 26, Saturday Wrap: Top Three All Win

The title race is unchanged in Germany after Saturday’s games. All of the top three sides -- Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach -- were victorious. Gladbach and Dortmund defeated the fifth and sixth placed teams, Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen, giving Schalke 04 a big boost in their bid for fourth place.

Bayer certainly created enough chances to win and had quite a bit of the ball, but Lucien Favre’s side was opportunistic and quick on the counter once again. Marco Reus scored the opener in the 7th minute, taking advantage of a terrible backpass by Daniel Schwaab to put his team ahead. Bayer appeared to grab an equalizer through Stefan Kiessling in the 75th minute, when the striker capitalized on a drop by Marc-Andre ter Stegen, but the young keeper would be bailed out. Reus set up Igor De Camargo for the winner on the counter in the 88th minute.

This game only needed one goal, and it was a beauty. In the 8th minute, Ilkay Gündogan was played one-on-one with Werder keeper Sebastian Mielitz. Instead of shooting, he cut back for Shinji Kagawa, who had a simple finish. Not a bad birthday present for the Japanese international, who turned 23 on Saturday.

How a team with Augsburg’s lack of raw talent is off the bottom three, I’ll never understand. They didn’t do a whole lot against Mainz, but did enough to grab all three points. Sami Allagui scored the opener for the visitors, finishing after a rebound on a Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting shot. Koo Ja-Cheoul hit a surprising equalizer from outside the box in the 43rd minute to send his team into the locker room tied, and they took the lead shortly after the break. Sebastian Langkamp netted the winner, heading in a free kick.

Freiburg winning on the road without Papiss Cisse is more confusing than Augsburg doing anything. They keep doing it, though, and they’re up to 16th place. Set piece defending and defending on crosses was Hamburg’s undoing. Freiburg went up 3-0 before Ivo Ilicevic pulled one back for HSV, but they couldn’t fight their way back into the game.

Nürnburg scored in the 9th minute through Daniel Didavi, who headed in a cross from Alexander Esswein. They would try to defend that lead and they failed miserably. The hosts didn’t create much for the rest of the match as Mario Mandzukic and Patrick Helmes gave Wolfsburg the lead by the 24th minute. Helmes made it a brace in the second half for good measure.

Hertha are a really bad team, you guys. Arjen Robben scored a hat trick. All of the goals were penalties.