Borussia Moenchengladbach claimed their
first Bundesliga win for 11 weeks on Sunday to relieve the pressure on
coach Andre Schubert with a controversial 1-0 victory over 10-man Mainz.
Danish defender Andreas Christensen
netted ‘Gladbach’s crucial winning goal on 76 minutes when the ball flew
his way after captain Lars Stindl’s shot cannoned off a Mainz defender
and the centre-back stabbed home.
But Mainz had a goal ruled out when
striker Pablo De Blasis poked his shot into the Gladbach goal on 89
minutes after the ball rolled free of Borussia’s goalkeeper Yann Sommer
following a save.
De Blasis was already off celebrating,
but referee Robert Hartmann refused to give the goal, even though
replays showed Sommer did not have a glove on the ball when De Blasis
kicked it.
“The ball was in my hand, but it all
happened very quickly. It was a very difficult decision to make,” Sommer
told Sky after the final whistle.
To add insult to injury, Hartmann sent off Mainz midfielder Jean-Philippe Gbamin for a second yellow card on 90 minutes.
“It’s a pity that we have to talk about
things other than football,” fumed Mainz coach Martin Schmidt when asked
about the disallowed goal as his side suffered their fourth away league
defeat in a row.
The result lifts Gladbach up to 12th, a
point below Mainz and six from the relegation places after a first
Bundesliga win since September 24.
After their 4-0 Champions League
thrashing at Barcelona in mid-week, Gladbach’s sports director Max Eberl
said their three Bundesliga games against Mainz, Augsburg and Wolfsburg
matter more than the Barca defeat.
“I’ll say it very clearly: up until Christmas, we must deliver results,” Eberl said before kick-off.
But this was another poor performance
from Gladbach, whose defence looked shaky, especially in the
controversial scene around the disallowed goal and Schubert still
remains in danger of becoming the sixth Bundesliga coach sacked this
season.
On Saturday, Bayer Munich went back to
the top of the table with a 5-0 win over Wolfsburg after RB Leipzig’s
three-week run as leaders was ended by a shock 1-0 defeat at Ingolstadt.
Both Leipzig and Bayern have 33 points,
but Carlo Ancelotti’s Bavarian giants top on goal difference with the
teams to meet in Munich on December 21.
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