Leon Goretzka returned from a long injury lay-off to score in Bayern Munich’s 4-1 win at Freiburg which put the champions nine points clear at the Bundesliga top on Saturday.
Germany midfielder Goretzka headed Bayern Munich ahead in the 58th minute in his first game since Dec. 4.
Freiburg super-sub Nils Petersen levelled seconds after coming on for his 100th top-flight goal but substitute Serge Gnabry, Kingsley Coman and Marcel Sabitzer cliched full points for Bayern Munich.
However, there was some confusion in the closing stages as Bayern Munich appeared to have fielded 12 players for a few seconds.
Bayern Munich are nine points ahead of Borussia Dortmund who could draw within six again later in the day against fourth-ranked RB Leipzig.
Bayer Leverkusen in third ruined Felix Magath’s full coaching comeback after a coronavirus infection.
This was with a 2-1 win over lowly Hertha Berlin from Lucas Alario’s classy shot into the far left top corner and Karim Bellarabi.
It helped their Champions League bid that Freiburg in fifth and Hoffenheim in sixth both lost, Hoffenheim falling 2-1 at home against Bochum from Takuma Asano’s brace.
Eintracht Frankfurt were held 0-0 by bottom club Greuther Fürth and in the lowlands Arminia Bielefeld drew 1-1 with VfB Stuttgart.
Results and standings Bundesliga (kick-off times in GMT):
Friday:
Union Berlin 1 Cologne 0
Saturday:
Eintracht Frankfurt 0 Greuther Fuerth 0
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Hertha Berlin 1
Freiburg 1 Bayern Munich 4
Hoffenheim 1 Bochum 2
Arminia Bielefeld 1 Stuttgart 1
Borussia Dortmund vs Leipzig (1630)
Sunday:
Augsburg vs Wolfsburg (1330)
Bor. Moenchengladbach vs Mainz (1530)
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P W D L F A Pts
1 Bayern Munich 28 21 3 4 85 29 66
2 Borussia Dortmund 27 18 3 6 67 38 57
3 Bayer Leverkusen 28 15 6 7 68 42 51
4 Leipzig 27 13 6 8 57 30 45
5 Freiburg 28 12 9 7 44 33 45
6 Hoffenheim 28 13 5 10 50 42 44
7 Union Berlin 28 11 8 9 34 38 41
8 Cologne 28 10 10 8 38 41 40
9 Eintracht Frankfurt 28 10 9 9 39 38 39
10 Mainz 26 11 4 11 39 30 37
11 Bochum 28 10 5 13 30 40 35
12 B/Moenchengladbach 27 9 6 12 38 51 33
13 Wolfsburg 27 9 4 14 29 42 31
14 Stuttgart 28 6 9 13 36 51 27
15 Augsburg 26 6 8 12 29 44 26
16 Arminia Bielefeld 28 5 11 12 23 39 26
17 Hertha Berlin 28 7 5 16 30 62 26
18 Greuther Fuerth 28 3 7 18 24 70 16
