Ghost goal casts a cloud over matchday nine
Matchday nine of German Bundesliga started with a bang on Friday night as Leverkusen won the match in Hoffenheim with 2:1 thanks to a ghost goal scored by Kießling. His header found its way into the goal through a hole at the side of the net. A DFB council and the FIFA will decide within the next days if the match will be rescheduled. Dortmund and Bayern also won their matches enabling the top three to extend the gap between them and the pack as Gladbach lost against Berlin.
The ghost goal was scored by Leverkusen´s Stefan Kießling about 20 minutes before the end of the match.
It was minute 69 in the match of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and Bayer 04 Leverkusen on Friday night. With the score being 0:1 Stefan Kießling´s header missed the goal just by centimeters and surprisingly found its way in anyway. A hole at the side of the net enabled the ball to slip through and Referee Dr. Felix Brych hesitated a little but then allowed the goal. Hoffenheim players at first did not complain but the substitutes found the hole and told Brych only minutes later. In the following Hoffenheim was awarded a penalty that was missed but got won back eventually. The game ended 1:2 for Leverkusen with Hoffenheim´s officials claiming the game had to be rescheduled.
A DFB council and the FIFA will decide about that within the next one to two weeks but DFB vice president Rainer Koch already said a repeat of the game is rather unlikely as the FIFA usually backs up the referees invoking on the fact that it was a factual decision. Bayer Leverkusen surpassed Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern Munich in chart for one day as they played on Saturday afternoon.
Dortmund, Bayern winning
BVB and FCB won their matches on Saturday despite both having some troubles. Bayern was one behind at halftime but put up the heat in second half to win 4:1 against Mainz 05. Borussia Dortmund scored an early goal and showed a strong beginning against Hanover but failed to improve. In second half the 96 were the better team unable to equalize resulting in the lucky victory for BVB.
Rival FC Schalke 04 were even more on the lucky side as they were one behind twice in the game with Eintracht Braunschweig and scored the winning 3:2 only second before the end. Schalke are back on position five in chart but Dortmund, Leverkusen and Bayern have seven and eight points respectively advantage towards the rest of the field. Dortmund will face FC Arsenal in UEFA Champions League on Tuesday while FC Schalke will meet FC Chelsea London. Bayer Leverkusen will play against Shakthar Donezk and Bayern Munich will encounter Viktoria Pilzen both on Wednesday.
The other games on Saturday saw Eintracht Frankfurt and 1. FC Nuremberg drawing 1:1, Hertha BSC Berlin beating Borussia Moenchengladbach with 1:0 and the match between SV Werder Bremen and SC Freiburg ending in the first goalless draw of the season.
HSV and Stuttgart with big fight
The Sunday afternoon match between Hamburger SV and VfB Stuttgart was quite the spectacle. Stuttgart managed to score the lead three times with HSV equalizing every single time and the match ending 3:3. Later that day VfL Wolfsburg beat FC Augsburg with 2:1 after being one behind.
