Halftime champions

Borussia Dortmund will cruise as number one into the second leg of this year's Bundesliga season. Following Mainz's defeat to Frankfurt on Saturday, Dortmund now have a big enough lead to secure their position at the top going into 2011.

In Saturday's game, Mainz crashed 2-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt with league top scorer Theofanis Gekas and Marco Russ securing goals for Frankfurt. Andre Schuerrle managed to put a temporary equalizer into the net but in the end Mainz didn't have it in them to beat Frankfurt.

Both Gekas and Schuerrle scored their goals from the penalty spot, but Frankfurt dominated most of the game and so took home a well-deserved victory.

Dortmund clear favorites

Mainz now stand at 30 points which means that even though there are two games remaining before the winter break, they can't catch table-topping Dortmund who take 37 points into their Sunday match against Nuremberg.

Dortmund, being the clear favorites in that match, are expected to extend their lead over Mainz to 10 points. So far Dortmund have now won 12 out of their 14 Bundesliga matches.

"This has no relevance to us whatsoever," Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp said. "I have never seen a trophy that said: 'autumn champion'."

Yet another setback for Munich

Later on Saturday, defending champions Bayern Munich suffered yet another blow to their hopes of retaining the trophy as they were handed a 2-0 defeat by Schalke.

Both sides went into halftime without a goal even though Bayern came close to taking the lead when both Mario Gomez and Franck Ribery only just failed to get the ball past Schalke goalie Manuel Neuer.

After the break, Schalke was better in taking advantage of their chances. Spanish midfielder Jose Manual Juardo opened scoring 12 minutes into the second half.

Only 10 minutes later, Schalke's Benedikt Hoewedes was left unmarked in the middle of the penalty area and didn't hesitate to head the ball safely into the net.

Bayern are now trailing Dortmund by 14 points.

In Saturday's other matches, Hanover defeated a 10-man Moenchengladbach 2-1 while Freiburg beat Hamburg 1-0. Stuttgart were held to a 1-1 draw by Hoffenheim. The match between Bremen and Wolfsburg ended in a goalless draw - with each side failing to covert a penalty.

On Sunday, Dortmund will play Nuremberg while Cologne will be up against Bayer Leverkusen.

Author: Andreas Illmer (dpa, SID, Reuters)
Editor: Martin Kuebler