BERLIN: The injured Erling Haaland watched as his Borussia Dortmund team-mates were outclassed and outgunned in a humiliating 5-2 loss at home to Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga on Sunday with their hopes of catching leaders Bayern Munich slipped yet further away.

In a game they had to win to keep pace in the title race, Dortmund’s calamitous defending saw them slump to a sixth defeat of the season and left them on 43 points, nine behind Bayern. Leverkusen stayed third but reduced the gap with Dortmund to five points.

The hosts got off to a nightmare start when they fell behind to a Manuel Akanji own goal in the 10th minute, but they soon levelled when Leverkusen’s Jeremie Frimpong also fired into his own net.

Leverkusen restored their lead in the 20th minute through Florian Wirtz and further increased their advantage with a sizzling free kick from Robert Andrich in the 28th.

The visitors quickly killed off any hopes of a second-half revival from the hosts when Jonathan Tah slammed in a volley eight minutes after the interval.

Moussa Diaby compounded Dortmund’s misery by scoring the visitors’ fifth goal in the 87th minute although the hosts did manage to respond with a strike from Steffen Tigges.

Also on Sunday, VfL Wolfsburg ended their 11-game winless streak across all competitions with a 4-1 victory over last-placed Greuther Fuerth.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2022