Sublime Ribery volley keeps Bayern on title course
BERLIN (Reuters) - Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery scored a sensational volley to lead the German champions to a 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday that kept them five points clear at the top of the Bundesliga with six matches left.
Second-placed Borussia Dortmund, who face Liverpool in the Europa League next week, secured a Champions League spot for next season, staging a late rally to beat Werder Bremen 3-2 thanks to substitute Adrian Ramos' 82nd minute winner and make sure of a top three finish.
Frenchman Ribery, who has missed most of the season due to injury, took off at the edge of the box and sent his mid-air volley past Lukas Hradecky in the 20th minute after the keeper had initially saved a shot from Mario Goetze.
It was the 32-year-old's second goal of the campaign after being sidelined for eight months with an ankle problem and then suffering another injury that kept him out until last month.
Their win also set a Bundesliga record for the longest clean sheet against one team, with Frankfurt having failed to net in their last 757 minutes against them and their last goal against Bayern dating back to 2011.
"We started really well and had a lot of good plays. Not only Franck's amazing goal," said Bayern coach Pep Guardiola, whose team face Benfica in the Champions League quarter-finals next week.
"It would have been easier if we had scored a second goal."
Bayern, however, found little resistance from Eintracht and Xabi Alonso rattled the crossbar with a free kick as the hosts enjoyed close to 70 percent possession.
The treble-chasing Bavarians, who face Benfica in the Champions League quarter-finals next week, are on 72 points with Borussia Dortmund, who host Werder Bremen later on Saturday, on 64.
Dortmund top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang notched his 23rd goal of the campaign to put the hosts ahead in the 53rd but two goals in five minutes from Werder, without injured forward Claudio Pizarro, put them unexpectedly on the backfoot.
Japan international Shinji Kagawa grabbed the equaliser in the 77th, while Ramos, who came on in the 80th, secured the win with a diving header two minutes later to open up a 22-point gap with fourth-placed Bayer Leverkusen with six matches left.
Hertha Berlin, third on 48, are in action at Borussia Moenchengladbach on Sunday. The top three teams qualify for the Champions League group stage with the fourth going into the qualifying rounds.
Schalke 04 failed to climb back into Champions League contention, suffering a 3-0 loss at promoted Ingolstadt to drop to sixth on 44 points.
Argentine Pablo de Blasis struck twice as Mainz 05 battled past Augsburg 4-2 to reclaim fifth spot.
Hamburg SV took a big step towards securing their top- flight status, crushing bottom-placed Hanover 96 3-0 to move them into 10th place on 34, seven points above the relegation zone.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond and Pritha Sarkar)