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BAYERN MUNICH

Bundesliga round-up of opening weekend

Schalke 04 and Hamburg shared the points in a 3-3 thriller on Sunday as new signings grabbed the limelight on the opening weekend of the Bundesliga season.

Bundesliga round-up of opening weekend
Photo: DPA

Champions Bayern Munich, who beat Mönchengladbach 3-1 on Friday, and Borussia Dortmund, who won 4-0 at Augsburg on Saturday, picked up impressive wins.

Schalke’s new-signing Adam Szalai scored the Royal Blues’ crucial third goal to share the points with Hamburg while Gabon forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang marked his Dortmund debut with a hat-trick.

Mainz’s Shinji Okazaki of Japan and Leverkusen’s South Korea star Son Heung-Min both also scored on their respective debuts.

But there was bad news for Germany coach Joachim Löw as Schalke’s teenage midfielder Julian Draxler withdrew from Wednesday’s international friendly against Paraguay.

The 19-year-old attacking midfielder limped off after only 23 minutes against Hamburg having damaged his left Achilles tendon.

“The injury could quickly get inflamed and turn into a long drawn-out affair, so it makes no sense (for him to play on Wednesday),” said Schalke team manager Horst Heldt.

Schalke took the lead at home to Hamburg when Holland striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar struck after just 84 seconds before compatriot Rafael van der Vaart netted a 12th-minute penalty to level.

Striker Maximilian Beister produced a bullet header on 24 minutes to put Hamburg in front before Huntelaar levelled right at the end of the first half.

Ex-Dortmund defender Lasse Sobiech then headed the hosts ahead just after half-time before Hungary’s Szalai, who joined Schalke from Mainz in the summer, pounced on a mistake by Hamburg goalkeeper Rene Adler on 72 minutes for a share of the points.

Okazaki netted in Mainz 05’s 3-2 home win over his ex-club VfB Stuttgart – who he left last month.

Mainz picked up three points when Germany midfielder Nicolai Müller netted goals either side of Okazaki’s 65th-minute strike.

Müller scored his first after just 14 minutes, but Bosnia striker Vedad Ibisevic levelled just two minutes later.

Okazaki, who joined Mainz on July 1st in a three-year deal after two years at Stuttgart, slotted home his team’s second when he converted a cross from Czech Republic defender Zdenek Pospech before Müller made it 3-1, 12 minutes from time.

Stuttgart’s Martin Harnik gave his side hope with eight minutes left to make it 3-2, but Mainz hung on.

Aubameyang, 24, showed why Dortmund paid French League Cup winners St Etienne 13 million euros (US$17.3m) for him as he became the sixth player in Bundesliga history to hit three goals on his debut.

Poland striker Robert Lewandowski converted a penalty in the dying stages to complete Augsburg’s misery.

South Korea’s Son also netted on his first competitive appearance for Champions League hopefuls Bayer Leverkusen in their 3-1 win at home to Freiburg.

Hertha Berlin marked their return to the top-flight after a year’s absence with a stunning 6-1 rout of Eintracht Frankfurt.

Colombia striker Adrian Ramos and Tunisia forward Sami Allagui each scored twice in the hammering at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium while a first-half penalty from Eintracht Frankfurt midfielder Alex Meier was all the guests could muster.

Hanover 96 enjoyed a 2-0 win over Wolfsburg, who finished with nine men after both midfielder Maximilian Arnold and Swiss defender Timm Klose were sent off.

 

Hoffenheim were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Nuremberg while Werder Bremen edged newly-promoted Eintracht Braunschweig 1-0 with Austria midfielder Zlatko Junuzovic hitting the 82-minute winner.

AFP/jcw

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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