Pizarro inspires Bremen again as goals flow in Bundesliga
BERLIN -- Claudio Pizarro scored his 100th Bundesliga goal for Werder Bremen in a 4-1 win over last-place Hannover and Bayer Leverkusen came from three goals down to draw 3-3 at Augsburg.
South Korea midfielder Koo Ja-cheol's hat trick wasn't enough for Augsburg as Hakan Calhanoglu's injury-time penalty earned Leverkusen an unlikely draw and prevented the team from slumping to its fourth straight defeat.
Jeffrey Gouweleeuw was sent off for conceding the hand-ball penalty in the 92nd minute, 12 minutes after Paul Verhaegh's own goal put Leverkusen in touching distance. Karim Bellarabi started the comeback with a half-hour remaining.
Leverkusen coach Roger Schmidt wasn't in the stadium to see any of it after leaving for Spain to watch Europa League opponent Villarreal in action against Las Palmas.
Veteran Peru striker Pizarro scored one goal -- his 11th of the season and fifth in three games -- and set up another to boost Bremen's hopes of avoiding the drop.
Fin Bartels opened the scoring before Pizarro made it 2-0 with a brilliant strike in the 26th. The 37-year-old lifted the ball over two Hannover defenders with his right boot and smacked it past the goalkeeper with his left.
Kenan Karaman pulled one back but Pizarro set up Theodor Gebre Selassie in the 56th. Zlatko Junuzovic sealed it.
"The win was very important. Now we can breathe in and carry on working," Pizarro said.
Defeat piles the pressure on former Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf, now in charge of Hannover and eight points from safety.
Also, Schalke won 3-1 at Cologne to move to fourth, going ahead on a second-minute Klaas-Jan Huntelaar penalty and 23rd-minute Max Meyer strike. Leonardo Bittencourt pulled one back 10 minutes later but Franco Di Santo headed Schalke's winner in the 76th.
Wolfsburg defeated Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-1, Stuttgart routed Hoffenheim 5-1, and Eintracht Frankfurt drew 1-1 with Ingolstadt, which finished with 10 men after Pascal Gross' 74th-minute sending off.
