VfB Stuttgart striker Vedad Ibisevic headed a late winner to seal his team's 2-1 home victory over Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday to deny their guests second place in the Bundesliga.
With German league leaders Bayern Munich hosting Bayer Leverkusen later, Frankfurt needed a win at Stuttgart to leap-frog Schalke 04, who remain second in the league after they beat Nuremberg the day before.
Ex-Germany midfielder Christian Gentner played a big part in Stuttgart's win, which lifts them up to eighth in the league, after he scored the opener in the sixth minute, then provided the final cross for Ibisevic's 84th-minute header.
Frankfurt equalised when captain Alexander Meier curled the ball inside the far post on 67 minutes before Bosnia and Herzegovina's Ibisevic hit his fifth goal of the season to leave Frankfurt third in the league.
On Saturday, defending champions Borussia Dortmund and Schalke had to dig deep as they returned to domestic action still in the glow of their midweek Champions League triumphs.
After Borussia shocked Real Madrid 2-1 in Dortmund on Wednesday, the same night Schalke enjoyed a 2-0 win at Arsenal, the pair both needed second-half goals to win their respective Bundesliga games.
Dortmund beat Freiburg 2-0 in heavy snow as centre-back Neven Subotic got the breakthrough the defending champions needed with a 54th-minute header.
Germany midfielder Mario Goezte slotted home the second on 83 minutes to keep Dortmund fourth.
Schalke also had to labour for their three points in Gelsenkirchen as Peru striker Jefferson Farfan hit the only goal of the game in the 77th-minute.
VfL Wolfsburg, who parted company with coach Felix Magath on Thursday, picked up only their second win of the season with a 4-1 victory at 10-man Fortuna Duesseldorf to lift themselves off the bottom and up into 16th in the table.
Ironically, two of the players who Magath had recruited over the summer, Dutch striker Bas Dost, who finished with a brace, and Croatia's Ivica Olic, both scored in the rout.
Brazil's Diego netted a 78th-minute penalty after Duesseldorf had midfielder Oliver Fink shown a straight red card for fouling the Brazilian in the area with only the goalkeeper to beat.
Mainz are up to fifth in the league after Hungary striker Adam Szalai scored a hat-trick against Hoffenheim. Having opened his account in the 21st minute, he doubled his team's tally with a second on 46 and wrapped up his hat-trick with a 64th-minute header to seal the 3-0 victory.
Source: AFP
