Gladbach rout Hertha Berlin
Schaaf sacked
Borussia Moenchengladbach climbed into the Bundesliga’s Champions League places on Sunday with a 5-0 hammering of Hertha Berlin as Andre Hahn scored his first goal since his horror injury.
Gladbach routed third-placed Hertha 4-1 in Berlin last October and again ran riot at Borussia Park as Edin Hazard scored twice with Germany winger Patrick Hermann and Ibrahima Traore joining Hahn on the scoresheet.
The result sees Gladbach climb from seventh to fourth and are now just three points behind Hertha with Andre Schubert’s team hunting a return to the Champions League next season with their highest league win for five years.
Gladbach took the lead when Hertha’s goalkeeper Rune Jarstein made a hash of his clearance kick on 14 minutes.
Borussia’s Mahmoud Dahoud intercepted the ball and his pass found Hazard, who fired home.
Gladbach doubled their tally with an hour gone when Hahn marked his first start in five months with a superb individual effort.
Having received the ball with his back to goal, Hahn made enough space to turn and hit the top left-hand corner.
It marked his sweet return to Gladbach’s starting line-up after a horror tackle by Schalke’s Johannes Geis left him with a fractured leg and torn knee ligament last October.
The floodgates opened in the last 15 minutes as Herrmannn finished a move he started with Hazard on 76 minutes before the Belgian claimed his second on 80 minutes.
With the Hertha defence in disarray, Ibrahima Traore replaced Hazard and scored two minutes after coming off the bench to claim Gladbach’s fifth.
On Saturday, Franck Ribery’s spectacular bicycle kick sealed Bayern Munich’s 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt to keep Pep Guardiola’s side five points clear.
Meanwhile, the Bundesliga’s bottom side Hanover 96 on Sunday sacked Thomas Schaaf as head coach in the wake of their 10th defeat in 11 games, with the club all but relegated.
Their 3-0 home defeat to Hamburg on Saturday ended Schaaf’s reign after the 54-year-old took charge in December after Michael Frontzeck was sacked with the club second from bottom.
Hanover’s plight took a turn for the worst under Schaaf who leaves, along with his assistant coaches, with the club 10 points from safety with six games left.
Daniel Stendel, coach of Hanover’s Under-19 team, has been promoted to take charge of the senior team for the rest of the season.
“We did not make our decision lightly. Thomas has always carried out his work very meticulously and was goal-oriented,” said Hanover’s chief executive officer Martin Bader.
“He has exhausted, along with his coaching staff, every opportunity to achieve positive results with the team, but unfortunately they didn’t manage it.”
It was another quick exit for Schaaf, who spent 14 years coaching Werder Bremen up until 2013, but spent just a season at Eintracht Frankfurt until last May before his brief stint at Hanover.
After 14 years in Germany’s top flight, Hanover are facing up to the prospect of life in the second division.
“We know that avoiding relegation with a 10-point deficit is possible only theoretically,” said club president Martin Kind.