Götze fulfills Toppmöller's birthday wish as Eintracht join title race

On a weekend during which league-leaders FC Bayern München increased their commanding lead at the top of the tableand nearest challengers RB Leipzig lost their league fixture against Hoffenheim, Dino Toppmöller's Eintracht Frankfurt have given German football fans some faint reason to hope for a title race. German footballing legend Mario Götze quite literally fulfilled his coach's expectations and delivered Toppmöller the greatest birthday gift a trainer can hope for: a game-winning goal. 

Toppmöller made two changes to the XI that lined up against Stuttgart just prior to the international break. Götze and Ansgar Knauff replaced Hugo Larsson and Eric Junior Dina Ebimbe. Werner - having to do without midfielder Jens Stage and wingback Felix Agu - were replaced by Leonardo Bittencourt and Mitchell Weiser. Additionally, central defender Anthony Jung (parental leave) had to sit out. Niklas Stark took over for young. One non-enforced change saw Marco Grüll start above Justin Njinmah. 

The red-hot attacking duo of Omar Marmoush and Hugo Ekitiké got their early looks in, but the hosting Hessians weren't necessarily very threatening during a first-half prone to many sleepy stretches. Toppmöller's SGE retained a slight optical advantage without giving observers a feel that they deserved the opening goal. On a couple of occasions, potential future German national team keeper Michael Zetterer had to make some solid, if not routine, interventions. 

From the perspective of Werner's Hanseaten, the opening 45 came to a very bitter conclusion. Götze's goal at the start of first half injury time erased what had been a decent defensive performance from the guests. Bremen also did well in maintaining midfield possession. New Eintracht starting left-back Nathaniel Brown initiated the play with a pass into the box for Ekitiké. The French striker tapped back to Götze, who polished off his second goal of the campaign in yet another milestone match. 

Bremen put up a good fight in the second 45. Zetterer also did his part to keep the game as close as possible with additional saves on Marmoush and Ekitiké. The guests came closest to equalizing ten minutes from the end of normal time when Stark nodded a Marvin Ducksch cross off the post in the 80th.  After the full-time whistle, the Eintracht supporters stranded their team with the famous "Deutsche Meister" ["German Champion"] chant from the FanKurve.