Borussia Dortmund cruised past Eintracht Frankfurt 4-0, with two goals coming from Donyell Malen, on Saturday to take over the lead in the Bundesliga from Bayern Munich with five matches left in the season.
Dortmund, who last won the league title in 2012 with then coach Juergen Klopp, scored three times in the first half to make sure of a club-record ninth straight home game win that lifted them to 60 points, one ahead of Bayern, who slumped to a 3-1 loss at Mainz 05.
It was the eighth league game for Frankfurt, the last year’s Europa League champion, without a win and it dropped to ninth, out of contention for a European spot.
“We are satisfied with the performance and the result but it is just one, a good one but just one step we took today,” said Dortmund coach Edin Terzic. “Now there are exactly five more steps.
“You could see that every player wanted to show that what we showed last week in the second half was not our standard.”
Dortmund had led 2-0 in the second half and then 3-2 before settling for a 3-3 draw at VfB Stuttgart last week.
“Today’s energy is what we need to take the next five steps. We still have a lot of work in front of us to take those next five steps as successfully as today,” Terzic said.
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Jude Bellingham opened Dortmund’s account in the 19th minute after picking up the ball at the edge of the box, turning on the spot and firing in.
The host struck again five minutes later but its second goal was far easier, with keeper Gregor Kobel kicking the ball deep in to the Frankfurt half and Malen slotting in after the ball was headed on twice past a clueless Frankfurt backline.
Mats Hummels made it 3-0 with a well-timed header from a Raphael Guerreiro cross before Karim Adeyemi’s solo effort set up Dutch striker Malen for his seventh league goal of the season in the 66th.
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