Borussia Dortmund regained top spot in the Bundesliga from Bayern Munich on Sunday with a 3-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen to preserve their 100 percent record after five straight wins.
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Dortmund have now won 11 games in all competitions, but are top only on goal difference from defending champions Bayern, who have also won all five games after beating Darmstadt 3-0 away on Saturday.
Early form suggests there will be a title-race in Germany this season after Bayern won the Bundesliga for each of the last three years at a canter.
“We were very, very good, especially in the first 20 minutes,” said Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel, whose side play at Hoffenheim on Wednesday and are away to Bayern in a fortnight.
“Things went a bit wild after that, from Leverkusen as well, and the tempo went up again. It was an incredibly intensive game.”
Dortmund took the lead when right winger Jonas Hofmann profited from a mistake by Leverkusen goalkeeper Bernd Leno to slot into an empty net on 19 minutes.
Leverkusen should have been awarded a penalty when Mexico striker Javier Hernandez was pushed in the area by Dortmund left-back Marcel Schmelzer on 53 minutes but referee Deniz Aytekin waved on play.
The hosts doubled their lead when left-winger Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s pass put Shinji Kagawa in behind the defence to slot past Leno on 58 minutes.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted Dortmund’s third, and his sixth of the season, by converting a late penalty to join Bayern’s Thomas Muller as the league’s top scorer.
Shinji Kagawa: Has now had a direct hand in 5 goals (2 goals, 3 assists) in 5 Bundesliga appearances this season #BVB
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) September 20, 2015
Elsewhere, Augsburg picked up their first win of the season with a 2-0 victory at Hanover 96 thanks to goals by right-winger Alexander Esswein and Dutch defender Paul Verhaegh.
Schalke’s Leroy Sane underlined his status as one of Germany’s rising stars with his club’s second-half winner to seal their 1-0 victory at VfB Stuttgart to leave the Royal Blues fourth.
Meanwhile, Lucien Favre has resigned as Borussia Monchengladbach coach to leave the club in chaos after losing all of their opening five league games to go bottom of the Bundesliga.
Gladbach’s 1-0 defeat at Cologne on Saturday was the final straw for the 57-year-old after four years in charge.
“We are totally stunned,” Monchengladbach’s vice-president Rainer Bohnhof said. “We have talked about this all day and rejected his offer to resign, because we were of the opinion that we could succeed together, but then he went out on his own.”
