Kagawa strike keeps Dortmund top

BERLIN, February 11, 2012 (AFP) - Japan winger Shinji Kagawa hit his fourth goal in four games on Saturday to keep Borussia Dortmund top of the German league with a 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen.

The 22-year-old Kagawa finally unpicked the packed Leverkusen defence and fired home from a tight angle on the stroke of half-time for what proved to be the winner which keeps Dortmund two points clear of second-placed Bayern Munich.

Having scored twice in the 3-1 home win over Hoffenheim a fortnight ago and in the 4-0 German Cup rout of Holstein Kiel in midweek, Kagawa is in fine form for the German champions and his pace is a constant threat.

"Leverkusen were organised and highly motivated, but we did a good job of defending well against them," said Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp.

"I am very happy with the game, because I knew it would be very difficult."

Ex-Germany captain Michael Ballack, who has fallen out of favour with Leverkusen, was again over-looked on the bench when coach Robin Dutt opted to bring on 21-year-old midfielder Karim Bellarabi for the last 15 minutes.

Leverkusen defended well throughout, but will have their work cut out to contain holders Barcelona at home in the Champions League round of 16, first-leg on Tuesday.

Dortmund picked up their 14th win of the season, but Bayern are hard on their heels after their 2-0 win over struggling Kaiserslautern as Germany's Mario Gomez and Thomas Mueller both netted.

"We built on our good performance in Stuttgart (in the German Cup in midweek) and we created five great chances im the first-half alone," said Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes.

"I was again very pleased that we gave nothing away in defence, because you need a good defence to win the title."

Munich will be without midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger for the foreseeable future as the Germany star has damaged ankle ligaments, but they had enough firepower in midfield to cope with Kaiserslautern.

Dutch winger Arjen Robben, who has struggled for form recently, started on the bench, but came on for the last half an hour with Bayern to face FC Basel in the knock-out phase of the Champions League on February 22.

"Arjen Robben was highly motivated and played well when he came on, he was very positive, but I expected that of him," said Heynckes.

Borussia Moenchengladbach enjoyed a 3-0 win at home to Schalke 04 on Saturday night to take over third place from the Royal Blues and remain three points behind Dortmund.

"That was impressive, but we lost our domination a little in the second-half," said goal-scorer Mike Hanke, while midfielder Marco Reus said the team are still improving.

The hosts were 2-0 up after just 15 minutes with Dortmund-bound Marco and Hanke finding holes in the Schalke defence before Juan Arango added the third on 32 minutes from an indirect free-kick.

"That performance was not worthy of a Schalke team," fumed Schalke captain Benedikt Hoewdes.

"We were very poor in the first-half, we were almost childish in our errors."

Having been knocked out of the German Cup in midweek by Moenchengladbach, Hertha Berlin's fortunes dipped further as they were hammered 5-0 at VfB Stuttgart and had defender Andreas Ottl sent off for a foul.

Hertha host Dortmund in the Bundesliga next Saturday and will need to improve substantially to avoid another defeat as they lie in 15th place, just above the relegation zone.

Hoffenheim who fired Holger Stanislawski as coach on Thursday and replaced him with ex-Hertha manager Markus Babbel, enjoyed their first win under their new coach with a 1-1 draw at Werder Bremen.

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