Beyer goal sends Borussia Dortmund top of the Bundesliga

Beyer hands Borussia victory and top spot

Maximilian Beyer scored in the 80th minute to give Borussia Dortmund a 1:0 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, AFP reported. Dortmund thereby moved to the top of the Bundesliga table with a three-point lead. The match was short on clear chances: the best opportunity of the first half fell to Serhou Guirassy, who went one-on-one with goalkeeper Noah Atubolu in the 15th minute but tried to chip the ball softly — the keeper saved it. After the break, Guirassy headed a Joey Veerman delivery off the crossbar.

Substitutions decided the outcome

Both substitutes created the decisive goal: Jobe Bellingham made an instant impact and delivered a clever pass to his fellow bench player Beyer, who curled the ball into the net from the edge of the box. Beyer had come on for the ineffective Fabio Silva 22 minutes before the end. “We have a great team. Those who don't start are the finishers. They are the ones who close out the match and decide its outcome”, said Dortmund coach Niko Kovac, adding that he was happy for Beyer, who “had been through a difficult time.” According to AFP, it was Borussia's first league win since mid-September: after six straight wins to open the season, Kovac's side had won only one of their last four matches in all competitions.

Bayern can reclaim top spot

Bayern can return to the top of the table on Sunday with a win over Freiburg, but Munich will be without head coach Vincent Kompany: he is being treated in hospital for a mysterious infection after losing consciousness at training on Friday, AFP reports.

Füllkrug extends his streak, Leipzig bounce back

Niclas Füllkrug scored in a sixth consecutive Bundesliga match as his Werder beat Mainz 3:2 away. The forward, who returned on loan from West Ham in the summer, converted two penalties in the first 25 minutes — his second straight brace in the league. Ludovit Reis added another goal, while the hosts scored through Antoni Chaci and Lee Jae-sung. Füllkrug now has eight goals this season — half of his tally in his final Werder season of 2022/23, when he finished as the Bundesliga's top scorer. According to AFP, he scored only three times in a year and a half of injury-hit spells at West Ham, and once in six months on loan at Milan. The Bremen coach called him a “guiding star” that “shines brightly and carries the team on its back”. Earlier the same weekend, RB Leipzig, following a heavy 1:4 Champions League defeat to Real, comfortably beat promoted Elversberg 4:0 at home thanks to a Romulo brace and goals from Tidiam Gomis and Christoph Baumgartner, moving up to fifth place. Notably, having picked up no points away, the Leipzig side have won all four home matches with an aggregate score of 18:0. In other matches, Paderborn beat Hamburg 1:0 thanks to an 88th-minute goal by Ryan Philipp against his former club — only the newcomers' second win of the season; Augsburg and Union Berlin drew 1:1, both finishing the match with ten men; and Cologne and Schalke played out a goalless draw marred by a fierce head-to-head collision between the visitors' Robin Gosens and Soufiane El-Faouzi, who left the pitch.

What it means

The matchday sharply intensified the battle at the top: Borussia's three-point lead could vanish as early as Sunday if Bayern beat Freiburg — meaning Dortmund's lead is not guaranteed even for a day. For Borussia themselves, the win halts a slump after an excellent start, and the effectiveness of the substitutes (Bellingham and Beyer) gives Kovac an argument for squad depth. Bayern fans must follow both sporting and personnel news: Kompany's absence from the bench is a confirmed fact, but AFP does not disclose details of his condition.