Bundesliga, Week 3: Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Mainz remain perfect

Frankfurt finally picked up their first points of the season with a win away to Braunschweig. The visitors controlled the match early, mostly due to the superb play of Takashi Inui. The Japanese midfielder continually terrorized the Braunschweig defense and even struck the post in the first half.

However, for all of their dominance, Frankfurt wouldn’t beat Daniel Davari until the second half. Alexander Meier’s shot took a deflection off of Braunschweig defender Ermin Bicakcic and went past Davari for the 1-0 advantage. They doubled their lead ten minutes later through Stefan Aigner with a simple finish. Kevin Trapp stood tall for the remainder of the match, and Frankfurt grabbed all three points.

The second match of the day to see three red cards also saw each team score three goals in a thrilling shootout. Kevin Volland drew a penalty in the 10th minute, and Sejad Salihovic stepped up and converted the shot. One minute later, the Bosnian was sent off for slapping Freiburg’s Julian Schuster. Freiburg quickly capitalized, with Oliver Sorg scoring just minutes later.

Freiburg took the lead in the 65th minute through Sebastian Freis. The forward got onto the end of Jonathan Schmid’s corner to make it 3-2 in favor of Freiburg. Tobias Strobl scored a great goal a few minutes later to earn a 3-3 draw for Hoffenheim. In the final moments of the game, Admir Mehmedi was sent off for dissent from the sidelines. He was substituted earlier in the match

Bayer Leverkusen continued their impressive start to the season with a 4-2 victory over Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday. The three points keeps Leverkusen level atop the Bundesliga table with three other teams.

Sami Hyypiä made one change from the last match by bringing in Giulio Donati to play right back. Otherwise, his lineup remained the same as it has for the other league games. Lucien Favre went with the same lineup that beat Hannover last weekend.

An ugly match with three red cards ended with Hannover grabbing a 2-1 win over Schalke to give them six points after their first two matches and send Schalke reeling with a huge match coming up in a few days.

The ugly start to Schalke’s season continued early in the match due to another defensive mix-up. Benedikt Höwedes and Joel Matip were split by Mame Diouf, and Höwedes brought him down. The referee whistled for a penalty, and Höwedes was shown a red card. Szabolcs Huszti converted the penalty from the spot to give Hannover the 1-0 lead in the 15th minute.