German Bundesliga Weekend Review

Hannover climbed to second place in the Bundesliga courtesy of a convincing 3-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt.

Sunday

The visitors quickly stamped their authority on the match, with two early goals effectively ending the contest in the first half.

Mohammed Abdellaoue opened the scoring after 15 minutes and Christian Schulz doubled the lead six minutes later. Didier Ya Konan then wrapped things up in the dying moments.

It was a sixth win in seven games, lifting Hannover above Bayer Leverkusen and Mainz, although they remain 12 points adrift of leaders Borussia Dortmund.

Kaiserslautern shrugged off being a man down to recover for a 1-1 draw at home to Cologne.

Cologne opened the scoring through Lukas Podolski in the 29th minute before Kaiserslautern's task was made all the harder by the dismissal of Srdjan Lakic after 39 minutes.

The hosts refused to give up, however, and on 51 minutes found an equaliser through Jan Moravek.

Saturday

Mainz went down 1-0 at struggling Stuttgart while champions Bayern Munich could only manage a 1-1 draw at Wolfsburg.

Dortmund moved 13 points clear at the summit with a 3-1 win at third-spotted Bayer Leverkusen last night, and Stuttgart substitute Martin Harnik's 79th-minute strike proved enough to deny Mainz the opportunity to close the gap.

Bayern also fell further off the pace - the Bavarians finished the weekend 16 points adrift - following their 1-1 draw at Wolfsburg.

Thomas Muller put the visitors in front in the seventh minute and Philipp Lahm missed a penalty for Louis van Gaal's side, who appeared to be in control of the game.

However, they lost Franck Ribery to injury and saw Sascha Riether level matters four minutes from the end after Grafite had also missed a spot-kick for the home side on the stroke of half-time in their first game since the sale of star striker Edin Dzeko to Manchester City.

At the other end of the table, bottom club Borussia Monchengladbach started 2011 by picking up only their third league victory of the season - 1-0 at Nurnberg.

Midfielder Roman Neustadter netted the game's only goal in the eighth minute to get his side within five points of fourth-bottom St Pauli and firmly in the hunt for survival. Javier Punola had the chance to level but missed from the spot four minutes from time.

St Pauli twice relinquished the lead to draw 2-2 at home to sixth-placed Freiburg, Marius Ebbers and substitute Gerald Asamoah seeing their goals cancelled out by a Papiss Cisse brace. The Senegalese striker's double made up for his earlier miss from the spot when the score was 0-0.

Werder Bremen eased their own relegation worries with a 2-1 home triumph over Hoffenheim to condemn Marco Pezzaiuoli to a losing start to his reign at the visitors' helm.

Boris Vukcevic looked to have nicked Hoffenheim a point when he equalised three minutes from time after Claudio Pizarro had given the hosts a first-half lead, but Torsten Frings' last-gasp winner put paid to that idea.

In the late kick-off, Hamburg boosted their European hopes by climbing to seventh place with a 1-0 win at Schalke, Ruud van Nistelrooy's 53rd-minute strike proving decisive in front of 61,673 fans at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen.
Sunday's Results and Reviews

Kaiserslautern 1-1 Cologne

Eintracht Frankfurt 0-3 Hannover
Saturday's Results and Reviews

Wolfsburg 1-1 Bayern Munich

St Pauli 2-2 Freiburg

Stuttgart 1-0 Mainz

Nurnberg 0-1 Borussia Monchengladbach

Werder Bremen 2-1 Hoffenheim
Friday's Result and Review

Bayer Leverkusen 1-3 Borussia Dortmund