Surprise package Borussia Moenchengladbach climbed to the top of the Bundesliga with a 3-0 win at Cologne on Friday as they continued their spectacular run this season.
Two goals from Mike Hanke and one from Juan Arango secured a fourth straight league win that saw them move on to 29 points, one ahead of Bayern Munich, who travel to FSV Mainz 05 today.
“This was a deserved win,” Gladbach coach Lucien Favre told reporters after his team stormed into a 2-0 lead at the break, before adding a third just after the interval. “We could have gone into the second half with an even bigger lead.”
Photo: EPA
“We wanted to pressure them from the start and my players did it well. We could have won by four or five goals today,” said the Swiss, who took charge midway through last season to keep them in the Bundesliga.
Champions Borussia Dortmund, in third place on 26 points, can themselves claim top spot with a home win over bitter rivals Schalke 04, who are a point behind them in fourth.
’Gladbach, who last season needed a relegation playoff to stay up, sent in front when forward Hanke fired in a low drive from 14m in the 20th minute.
Venezuela international Arango doubled the lead on the half hour, curling a 23m free-kick over the wall past goalkeeper Michael Rensing as Gladbach found little resistance in the regional derby that saw crowd trouble before the start.
Hanke dashed any Cologne hopes of a second-half comeback by slotting the ball home in the 47th after Rensing had palmed away a Patrick Herrmann shot.
‘BOWLINE’ AND ‘ARCTOS’: Roy Quaden was hit on the head by a boom, while Nick Smith was struck by the main sheet and thrown across the boat amid rough seas Two sailors have been killed in separate incidents in the treacherous Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, officials said yesterday, as a string of yachts retired in powerful winds and high seas. One of the crew members, 55-year-old Roy Quaden on Flying Fish Arctos, was hit on the head by a boom as the fleet raced down the New South Wales coast, race organizers said. The other man, 65-year-old Nick Smith, was struck by the main sheet aboard Bowline and thrown across the boat, said David Jacobs, vice commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. “Unfortunately, he hit his head on the winch, and
Champagne corks often pop and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital. There were no such celebrations this year when the defending champions on board LawConnect won the race in the early hours of yesterday morning, as it came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race. LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent at just after 2:30am.
Novak Djokovic is confident he can still win Grand Slams, starting at the Australian Open, with the Serbian launching his bid for an unprecedented 11th title and record 25th major crown in Brisbane, Australia. Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, who is gunning for a third Melbourne Park trophy, joins him at the Queensland Tennis Centre from Sunday to Jan. 5 in a stellar women’s field. The next season gets under way tomorrow with the mixed-teams United Cup in Perth and Sydney, headlined by world No. 2 Iga Swiatek in her first tournament since revelations that she served a one-month doping suspension. It
Liverpool on Thursday powered seven points clear at the top of the Premier League as the title favorites survived a scare in their 3-1 win against Leicester City, while Bruno Fernandes was sent off in Manchester United’s dismal 2-0 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Erling Haaland missed a penalty as crisis-torn Manchester City failed to end their dismal run with a 1-1 draw against Everton, but it was United’s travails and Liverpool’s remarkable run that took center-stage. Arne Slot’s side were shocked by Jordan Ayew’s early strike at Anfield, but the leaders recovered their composure to equalize just before the interval through Cody
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