BERLIN ( Associated Press) — Union Berlin’s heavy sporting load finally caught up with them on Sunday as they suffered a 5-0 loss at Bayer Leverkusen that resulted in Bayern Munich topping the Bundesliga after 13 games.
Moussa Diaby scored a brace, while Adam Halosek, Michel Becker and Robert Andrich scored a blistering goal for Leverkusen in the second goal.
“Bayer hit us down. We should have played more carefully and we got caught in the net,” said union manager Urs Fischer of the second-half failure. “We are not working consistently on the defence.”
It was Union’s worst defeat of the season, the most impassable defense in the league, with just nine goals in 12 games.
Union’s third defeat left Bayern two points ahead of the leaders with two rounds before the long break of the World Cup in Qatar.
Union, promoted to the top division for the first time in 2019, has set the pace from the top for seven weeks since a 1-0 victory in Cologne on 11 September.
The Capitals won eight of their last nine games and traveled straight to Leverkusen after beating Royal Union Saint-Guillois 1-0 in Belgium in the Europa League last Thursday.
The victory allowed Leverkusen to leave the relegation zone. Xabi Alonso’s team celebrates their third win of the season.
Freiburg moved up to second place in the table after beating Cologne 2–0 at home in Sunday’s second game.
Second-half goals from Jeong Woo-yong and Michael Gregoritz put Freiburg one point behind Bayern’s close. Union moved back to third place, two points behind the previous 10 season’s champions, the Bavarian Giants.
Some Freiburg fans raised a banner reading “Boycott Qatar 2022” during the match, sparking protests in the Bundesliga against the upcoming World Cup and Qatar’s human rights record.
