Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen beats Bayern 3-0 to open up 5-point Bundesliga lead

Bayer Leverkusen and coach Xabi Alonso took a big step closer to ending Bayern Munich's domination of the Bundesliga as they beat Bayern 3-0 on Saturday.

It's carnival season in the Rhineland, and Leverkusen fans, many of them in costume, had plenty to celebrate as Xabi Alonso's team barely allowed Bayern a chance to score.

It was Leverkusen's 31st game this season without a loss in all competitions, a remarkable campaign for a team which was in the relegation zone when Alonso took charge in Oct. 2022. Alonso celebrated with Bayer Leverkusen's players and fans after the biggest win to date in his brief coaching career.

The loss for Bayern leaves the 11-time defending champion facing a possible end to its run of titles. "We'll be the last ones to stop believing," Tuchel said.

After a kickoff delayed by fan protests, it was a Bayern player who scored the first goal — but he wasn't playing for Bayern.

Right back Josip Stanišić, sent out on loan to Leverkusen at the start of the season, popped up at the far post to score off Robert Andrich's low cross in the 18th minute after Bayern seemed to be taken by surprise by Leverkusen's quick throw-in routine.

Stanišić put his hands up in apology and barely celebrated his first Bundesliga goal in nearly two years, though his teammates certainly did.

Leverkusen made it 2-0 with an incisive counter early in the second half, Grimaldo sprinting down the left flank and playing a one-two with Nathan Tella before lofting a shot over goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

Jeremie Frimpong added a third in stoppage time into the empty net after Neuer had gone up for a Bayern corner.

The game was a comprehensive tactical victory for Alonso over Thomas Tuchel and Bayern, which couldn't break through Leverkusen's defense. Harry Kane has scored 24 goals in 20 Bundesliga games since joining Bayern but had few chances to score as Leverkusen squeezed him out of the game, even though Bayern finished with five specialist forwards on the field at once.

Alonso switched to a back four from his usual three-at-the-back formation and benched Frimpong to deploy Stanišić on the right of defense for the first time this season. Tuchel started new signing Sacha Boey, normally a right back, on the left side and he was out of position for Stanišić's opening goal.

Also Saturday, Union Berlin beat Wolfsburg 1-0 in a game that had repeated interruptions, about 30 minutes in total, as fans threw tennis balls onto the field in protest at the league's planned investment deal.

The referee took the players to the locker rooms in the first half after stoppages to clear away tennis balls thrown by Union fans. When play resumed, there was another interruption when Wolfsburg fans threw more balls. Long-running protests against the German league's plans to sell a stake of revenue to an outside investor have intensified as talks are held with prospective buyers.

Danilho Doekhi headed the only goal for Union in the 21st minute of first-half stoppage time. Fifth-place Leipzig drew 22 at Augsburg to lose more ground in the race for the Champions League places. Leipzig has four points from five games since the new year.

United States midfielder Lennard Maloney scored his first career Bundesliga goal for Heidenheim in a 2-1 win at Werder Bremen, Eintracht Frankfurt was held to a 1-1 draw by Bochum and Borussia Moenchengladbach and Darmstadt played out a 0-0 draw.

Haaland and De Bruyne back in tandem as City keeps the pressure on Liverpool in EPL title race

Watch out, Premier League. The competition's most lethal attacking combination is back in tandem.

Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne — both recently back from long injury absences — linked up for the clinching goal in Manchester City's 2-0 win over Everton on Saturday in what will be a worrying sight for the defending champions' rivals.

Liverpool remained in first place after a 3-1 victory over Burnley but City is ominously placed on the leader's shoulder, two points behind with a game in hand, and with its superstar attackers back in the groove.

Make it 12 times that De Bruyne has set up Haaland for a goal since they started playing together at the beginning of last season following the striker's move to England. No other Premier League partnership has delivered that many goals in this period.

And there was something so familiar with the way De Bruyne collected the ball in center-field and slid in Haaland, who bundled his marker off the ball and opened his body to steer home a finish in the 85th minute. It was Haaland's second of the game, after breaking Everton's stubborn resistance in the 71st by pouncing on a loose ball following a corner.

City has won six games in a row in the league, and 10 straight in all competitions.

Still, Liverpool is holding strong at the top, with Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez — the starting front three while Mohamed Salah is out injured — all scoring at Anfield. Vincent Kompany, the Man City great in charge of Burnley, couldn't do his old club a favor.

Liverpool bounced back from only its second league loss this season, at Arsenal last weekend, though there might be concerns over the fitness of Trent Alexander-Arnold after he came off at halftime, when the score was 11.

Son Heung-min marked his return from Asian Cup duty with South Korea by setting up Brennan Johnson for the stoppagetime winner as Tottenham beat Brighton 2-1. In other results, Fulham beat Bournemouth 3-1, Ivan Toney scored again as Brentford won 2-0 at Wolverhampton and last-place Sheffield United won for just the third time this season, 3-1 at relegation

Lens gets back in race for Champions League spots by beating Strasbourg 3-1

Lens won a third straight game to get back in the race for Champions League spots by beating Strasbourg 3-1 on Saturday to go level on points with fourth-place Lille in the French league.

Portuguese midfielder David Pereira da Costa scored his third goal in as many games and made an assist to help Lens play catchup after a sluggish start in this campaign. Lens finished runner-up last season.

Pereira da Costa played a onetwo with Florian Sotoca in the 16th minute before cutting the ball back for Elye Wahi, who opened the scoring with a tap-in. That was just the third league goal this season for Wahi, the club's record signing, who has struggled to adapt since leaving Montpellier last summer.

Wahi returned the favor in the 30th by setting up Pereira da Costa, who doubled the lead with a first-time effort.

Strasbourg left back Thomas Delaine capitalized on a goalmouth scramble to pull one back in the 43rd. Sotoca restored Lens' two-goal lead with an acrobatic flick in the 58th after Abakar Sylla missed his clearance.

rival Luton.