(Reuters) – Eintracht Frankfurt breathed life into their sputtering Bundesliga campaign on Sunday with a thrilling 4-3 win at Werder Bremen as midfielder Mario Goetze scored his first goal for the club.
Former Bayern Munich midfielder Goetze, who returned home to Germany after a spell with PSV Eindhoven, put the Europa League champions 1-0 up after two minutes with a neat finish into the bottom corner following some fine work by Randal Kolo Muani.
But the 2014 World Cup winner’s strike was canceled out 12 minutes later as poor defending by the Eintracht defense allowed Anthony Jung to unleash a shot past Kevin Trapp, before Leonardo Bittencourt headed in from a free kick to make it 2-1.
Daichi Kamada had a goal chalked off for offside before Kolo Muani dribbled past two Werder defenders and beat Jiri Pavlenka to drag Eintracht back into the contest.
Jesper Lindstrom made it 3-2 to Eintracht towards the end of a breathless first half after he collected Sebastian Rode’s pass behind Werder’s defense and chipped Pavlenka, before Djibril Sow struck after the break.
Niclas Fuellkrug’s 90th-minute penalty meant Eintracht had to endure a nervy final few minutes before they came away with their first win of the campaign.
Earlier in the day, FC Cologne were held to a goalless draw by 10-man VfB Stuttgart after Luca Pfeiffer was shown a straight red on his first start for the club for a reckless challenge on Timo Hubers in the second half.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Davis)
.