DORTMUND: Borussia Dortm­und demolished hapless VfL Wolfsburg 6-0 on Sunday, with two goals apiece from Karim Adeyemi and Jude Bellingham, to stay hot on the heels of Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich with three games left in the season.

The Ruhr valley club fired three goals past the Wolves in the first half to take the wind out of their sails and added three more after the break in a one-sided game which Wolfsburg littered with defensive errors.

Dortmund are now on 64 points, one behind Bayern, 2-1 winners against Werder Bremen on Saturday.

In front of a sold-out crowd of more than 81,000, the hosts went in front after 14 minutes with Adeyemi rising high to head in his fifth goal of the season.

The Wolves should have levelled in the 20th minute when Patrick Wimmer had only keeper Gregor Kobel to beat but his shot was blocked and Jonas Wind missed the target with his rebound.

Instead it was Dortmund who struck again in the 28th when Adeyemi delivered a pin-point assist for Sebastien Haller to tap in.

Donyell Malen did the same from a Julian Brandt assist in the 37th and after the break the hosts picked up where they had left off with Bellingham seeing his shot initially blocked by keeper Koen Casteels before the ball bounced off the bar and rolled in.

Wolfsburg’s disastrous defending continued, with another wrong pass allowing Adeyemi to slip in and make it 5-0 in the 59th. The Germany international could have earned his first Bundesliga hat-trick but he thundered a 65th-minute penalty over the bar.

Bellingham put an end to Wolfsburg’s ordeal in the 86th.

On Saturday, Serge Gnabry scored his second goal in two games to help Bayern record a win over Bremen, moving his side a step closer to an 11th successive Bundesliga title.

Bayern toiled in the first half and were lucky not to concede when Christian Gross fired a shot inches over the bar on 35 minutes.

Sadio Mane came close to putting the champions ahead after the break, but it wasn’t until just after the hour mark that Gnabry broke the deadlock.

Pouncing on a loose ball in the penalty area, the Germany international slotted the ball past Jiri Pavlenka in the Bremen goal.

Leroy Sane added a second from the bench ten minutes later, before Niklas Schmidt pulled a goal back with a spectacular long-range effort.

But that wasn’t enough for Bremen to avoid a 13th straight home defeat to Bayern, in a run stretching back to 2009.

Earlier on Saturday, a late goal from Kevin Kampl put RB Leipzig back on course for the Champions League spots with a 1-0 win over fellow top-four hopefuls Freiburg.

Kampl’s dainty chip on 73 minutes gave his side a 1-0 win in an otherwise stagnant game in Freiburg, just days after Leipzig had won a DFB Pokal semi-final in the same stadium.

The win lifted Marco Rose’s side to third, leapfrogging both Union Berlin and Freiburg in the race for the Champions League.

Union remained in the top four despite slipping to a 1-0 defeat away to Augsburg.

Dion Beljo’s neat first-time finish early in the second half was enough for Augsburg, who have still never lost to Union at home.

The win moved Augsburg closer to safety. Enrico Maassen’s side are now six points clear of the bottom three.

Hertha Berlin and Hoffenheim also landed crucial victories in the relegation fight.

Bottom side Hertha kept their slim hopes of survival alive with a tense 2-1 win against fellow strugglers Stuttgart.

Former Stuttgart player Marc Oliver Kempf put Hertha into the lead on half an hour, climbing high in the box to meet a Marco Richter cross.

Serhou Guirassy levelled for Stuttgart with a tap-in, but Hertha restored the lead through Florian Niederlechner in first-half stoppage time.

Meanwhile, Hoffenheim pulled four points clear of danger with an eventful 3-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.

Frankfurt reached the DFB Pokal final with a dramatic comeback against Stuttgart in midweek, but their sluggish league form continued in a miserable first half against Hoffenheim.

Christoph Baumgartner headed Hoffenheim in front on eight minutes and was later brought down in the box, allowing Andrej Kramaric to double the lead from the penalty spot.

Ihlas Bebou made it three from close range on the stroke of half time, before Mario Goetze netted a consolation goal for the visitors in the second half.

Elsewhere, Boc­hum slipped back into the bottom two after they lost 2-0 at Borussia Moenche­ngladbach. Jonas Hofmann and Lars Stindl scored for the home team.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023