Germany round-up: Leverkusen leap ahead

Bayer 04 Leverkusen moved top of the Bundesliga with an emphatic 4-1 victory away at bottom side Hertha BSC Berlin.

One-point advantage
The victory moved Klaus Augenthaler's side to the head of the standings with 22 points, one more than VfB Stuttgart who were 3-1 winners at previous leaders SV Werder Bremen.

Early lead
Brazilian striker França gave Leverkusen the lead at Hertha, opening the scoring in the eleventh minute. However, the visitors were pegged back two minutes into the second half when Fredi Bobic equalised, only for Hertha to find themselves reduced to ten men almost immediately when defender Denis Lapaczinski was dismissed.

Berbatov bonus
Dimitar Berbatov quickly restored Leverkusen's lead and, although Leverkusen lost Diego Placente to a red card three minutes past the hour, further goals from Bernd Schneider and Marko Babic sealed the win.

First-half lead
In Bremen, meanwhile, the meeting of the Bundesliga's most potent attack and its meanest defence did not disappoint, with Stuttgart taking a two-goal lead thanks to two strikes in four minutes, from Imre Szabics and Kevin Kuranyi, midway through the first half.

Record broken
Stuttgart's Aleksandr Gleb then missed a penalty on the stroke of half-time, and it seemed that might prove costly when Angelos Charisteas halved the deficit a minute before the hour, the first league goal Stuttgart goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand had conceded for 885 minutes. The 88th-minute dismissal of Brazilian defender Marcelo Bordon left Stuttgart hanging on but, as Bremen threw men forward, Christian Tiffert made in 3-1 in the final minute.

Dortmund hit six
BV Borussia Dormund took advantage of Bremen's defeat to move third in the table with a 6-2 win at home to Hannover 96.  Goals just before half-time from Ewerthon and Lars Ricken put Dortmund in command, with Sebastian Kehl adding a third early in the second period. Vinicius pulled a goal back almost immediately, but further strikes from Jan Koller, Ewerthon and Koller again meant that Denis Wolf's 84th-minute effort was little consolation.

Bayern held
FC Bayern München were held to a goalless draw at VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach, while VfL Wolfsburg recorded a 3-1 success against FC Hansa Rostock, Diego Klimowicz and Fernando Baiano striking to put the home side 2-0 up. René Rydlewicz reduced the arrears shortly before half-time, but Baiano made the game safe midway through the second half with his second and Wolfburg's third, before Hansa ended the match with ten men following the late sending off of Gernot Plassnegger.

Narrow victories
1.FC  Köln moved off the bottom with a 1-0 win against SC Freiburg, Mustafa Dogan's 70th-minute goal proving decisive, while a last-minute Benjamin Lauth penalty gave TSV 1860 München victory at home to Eintracht Frankfurt by the same scoreline.

First home defeat
FC Schalke 04 fell to their first home defeat of the season on Sunday, losing 2-0 to VfL Bochum 1848 at the Parkstadion. The visitors took more than an hour to register a shot on target - but those strikes proved decisive, with Frank Fahrenhorst and Mamadou-Lamine Diabang scoring the all-important goals.

Klose double
In the day's other game, German international striker Miroslav Klose scored two second-half goals - one from the penalty spot - to help 1. FC Kaiserslautern defeat 13th-placed Hamburger SV 4-0 at the Fritz-Walter-Stadion. Lucia Mettomo and Christian Timm were also on target in the victory which took Erik Geret's side up to eleventh.