Dortmund salvage 1-1 draw at Bayern Munich
Schalke held by ‘Gladbach in Bundesliga’
BERLIN, Dec 1, (Agencies): Mario Goetze scored for Borussia Dortmund to rescue a 1-1 draw at Bayern Munich that still leaves the defending champions 11 points adrift of the Bundesliga leaders on Saturday.
Goetze equalized in the 74th minute, when he controlled Marco Reus’ corner with his chest and struck the dropping ball sweetly inside the far post.
Toni Kroos broke the deadlock after a period of concerted Bayern pressure in the 67th, eluding Mats Hummels and Neven Subotic on the edge of the area before striking the ball perfectly with his left boot to send it beyond the helpless Roman Weidenfeller in goal.
Weidenfeller made three outstanding saves to save the point late in the game.
Bayern defender Holger Badstuber was carried off on a with four minutes remaining to cancel out Igor de Camargo’s 62ndminute opener for the visitors.
Schalke has just five points from its past six games.
Stefan Kiessling scored his ninth goal of the season for Bayer Leverkusen to beat Nuremberg 1-0 and consolidate second place.
Adam Szalai joined Kiessling as one of the league’s top scorers when he scored with a superb header in the last minute for 10-man Mainz to beat Hannover 2-1.
Elsewhere, Augsburg and Freiburg drew 1-1 in a bad-tempered game, and Stuttgart held on with 10 men for a 1-0 win at Greuther Fuerth.
In an effort to halt Schalke’s alarming loss of form, Huub Stevens switched goalkeepers before the game, bringing in Timo Hildebrand for “more experience” in place of the 22-year-old Lars Unnerstall.
However, the former Germany ‘keeper should have done better to stop de Camargo scoring with Moenchengladbach’s first real chance when he got his hand to the ball.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen then produced a fingertip save to deny Draxler an immediate response, before Jermaine Jones missed two good chances to pull one back.
Stevens brought off the ineffective Klaas-Jan Huntelaar with 20 minutes remaining, and it was sub- stitute Teemu Pukki who crossed for Draxler to preserve Schalke’s 17-game unbeaten record at home against Moenchengladbach.
Dieter Hecking was making his 100th appearance as Nuremberg coach in the Bundesliga, but was unable to celebrate as Leverkusen won its fourth game in succession.
Kiessling scored in the 37th, though TV replays suggested the former Nuremberg striker was offside when he received Andre Schuerrle’s pass.
In Mainz, Nicolai Mueller opened the scoring in the 10th, before Christian Schulz equalized for Hannover in the 28th.
It looked good for the visitors when Christian Wetklo was sent off four minutes into the second half, but Szalai sealed an unlikely win for the home side.
In Augsburg, Tobias Werner scored in the ninth minute for the home side, but Freiburg equalized in the 29th when the rebound fell kindly for Jonathan Schmid to score after goalkeeper Mohamed Amsif had saved Jan Rosenthal’s effort. Stuttgart forward Shinji Okazaki scored before the break with a header from the rebound after Vedad Ibisevic had shot his penalty straight at goalkeeper Wolfgang Hesl, who was making his Bundesliga debut.
Fuerth hit the post afterward, and Stuttgart defender Serdar Tasci was sent off in the 53rd for a dangerous tackle on Milorad Pekovic, who had to go off.