Bundesliga: Bas Dost keeps scoring as Wolfsburg keep winning
Bas Dost can't stop scoring and VfL Wolfsburg can't stop winning.
Dost, who now has scored 13 Bundesliga goals in just 12 starts, scored twice in the space of two minutes after the interval, then set up a Daniel Caligiuri goal as Wolfsburg came back from 3-2 down to grab a 5-3 victory at Werder Bremen Sunday night.
Dost's goals kept them unbeaten in their last 13 matches in all competitions. They still trail Bayern Munich by eight points in the two-team Bundesliga title chase, but if that title is perhaps out of reach another isn't. On their current form they will be thinking about winning the Europa League before transitioning to the Champions League next season.
Dost's and Caligiuri's second half heroics helped Wolfsburg make it four straight Bundesliga wins, this one extremely hard-earned. They were under the gun from the start against a home side that was unbeaten in its last six contests and produced a high speed, attacking first half that saw them lead three different times.
Both Dost goals were set up by Kevin De Bruyne on the right, the first finished when the Dutch striker raced down the inside right channel, the second when he was six-yards out to sidefoot home another cross. He turned provider two minutes later after beating the offside trap to a Vieirinha lob into the box, then sliding the ball across to Caligiuri for a wide open finish.
That was three Wolfsburg goals in five minutes that turned the match on its head. Werder Bremen, so aggressive in the first half, could not maintain that form but they had played their part in a classic display of attacking football.
Zlatko Junuzovic began the goal-fest in the ninth minute when he slid to meet a cross from Levin Ozrunali after Theodor Gebre Selassie had started the move with a surging run on the right flank. The Bremen advantage lasted only a minute as Marcel Schaefer, who had been beaten on the Junuzovic goal, replied with a powerful left side run of his own, then delivered a cross that Bremen keeper Raphael Wolf only parried into the path of Caligiuri, who made it 1-1.
Werder Bremen was back on top in the 16th minute, Franco DiSanto the scorer with a first-time, airborne volley to another Oztunali cross. DiSanto was six yards out when he hit it sweetly to the near corner. Wolfsburg replied immediately again, Maximilian Arnold diving to score a spectular header in the 18th minute. De Bruyne was the creator of that goal, too, swinging in a cross from wide right that allowed Arnold to get inside Jannick Vestergaard to head down to the left corner.
Bremen pulled ahead again in the 28th minute with Felix Kroos the man who made it happen. First, Kroos forced Diego Benaglio to produce a top-class save to keep out his 18-yard shot. From the resulting corner, Benaglio fisted the ball directly to Kroos, again 18 yards out on the top right of the box. He hammered a first-timer that deflected off Vieirinha for an own goal that the younger brother of German World Cup star Toni Kroos will likely want to claim as his own.
Werder Bremen took that lead into the interval but the oddity was that in a five goal first half none had been scored by Dost. In the second half he took care of that.
Borussia Moenchengladbach bounced back from Europa League elimination on Thursday night to top struggling Paderborn 2-0 with a workmanlike performance Sunday afternoon that allowed them to maintain their grip on third place in the Bundesliga.
Fabian Johnson and Patrick Herrmann scored the goals as 'Gladbach maintained its four-point edge over Bayer Leverkusen in the race for last guaranteed Champions League spot next season. Paderborn, which started brightly last fall after being promoted, is now in danger of heading right back to the Zweizliga. They remain 16th and have collected just four of a possible 18 points since the Bundesliga season resumed in January.
Moenchengladbach dominated the opening half and might have had three goals but had to settle for just the Johnson strike in the 18th minute. That came following five minutes of sustained pressure and after Lukas Kruse had beaten Ibrahima Traore at the top right corner and held a hard Johnson drive. The keeper could do nothing when Johnson collected from Julian Korb top left and saw his shot cannon off Patrick Ziegler's leg to wrong-foot Kruse.
There was a real let-off for Paderborn in the 25th minute when Traore got past a defender on the right byeline only to have his cross headed off the post by Ziegler with Kruse beaten for what would have been an own goal. The keeper had to be sharp to deny Branimir Hrgota 13 minutes later to keep his team in with a chance at the interval.
Paderborn could not build anything, however, a rare Uwe Huenemeier free header going wide from a corner kick in the 69th minute in their best chance.
Herrmann then got the clincher with nine minutes left when he pounced on Kruse's attempted clearance to a cross from Johnson and slid his shot through a maze of legs to Kruse's right-hand corner. It was the placement, rather than the pace which made it 2-0.
