Borussia Dortmund cemented their place at the top of Germany's Bundesliga on Sunday with a dominant display against Hanover, coming away 4-0 winners. Elsewhere, Stuttgart smashed Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen came back from a goal down to beat Kaiserslautern.

The day's first game saw Dortmund travel to Hanover in an effort to extend their lead at the summit of the league ladder.

Shinji Kagawa, Lucas Barrios, Robert Lewandowski and Jakub Blaszczykowski scored the goals for the visiting team, for whom Nuri Sahin had a second-half penalty saved by Hanover goalkeeper Florian Fromlowitz.

Hanover ended the game with 10 men after Karim Haggui was sent off in the second half.

The win pushes Dortmund up to 28 points, four clear of nearest rivals Mainz. The result means Hanover drop down to 10th on 16 points.

Goal-fest

In Stuttgart, meanwhile, the home team ran riot against a Werder Bremen outfit that hadn't put in such a bad performance since a 7-1 thrashing at the hands of Moenchengladbach in 1987.

The final score ended 6-0 to Stuttgart, with the southern Germans slotting home three goals in each half.

Romanian forward Ciprian Marica gave Stuttgart the lead in the 10th minute after being set up by Timo Gebhart. Fourteen minutes later, Bremen had a chance to equalize when Aaron Hunt was ruled to have been fouled in the box. Torsten Frings stepped up to take the resultant penalty but saw goalie Sven Ulreich save his effort.

Bremen were made to pay for the miss when Germany striker Cacau netted twice before the break. Christian Gentner, Georg Niedermeier and Arthur Boka added the remaining goals after the break.

Stuttgart's German international Christian Traesch said he was happy with the way his team played.

"As a team we played very compactly and had plenty of chances going forward and it was a very good game, but we need to now continue were we left off," Traesch said.

The victory lifts Stuttgart out of the relegation zone and into 14th place with 10 points. Bremen, meanwhile, stay in 11th on 14 points.

Comeback victory

In Sunday's other late game, Bayer Leverkusen came back from a goal down to beat Kaiserslautern 3-1 at Bayarena thanks to goals from Patrick Helmes and a brace from Sidney Sam.

Kaiserslautern opened the scoring in the 15th minute through Florian Dick after an Alexander Bugera free-kick smashed into the Leverkusen wall, but bounced back to the defender who unleashed a powerful shot from just under 30 meters.

However, Leverkusen found an equalizer seven minutes from halftime through Sam, with Helmes helping his team to the lead midway through the second half. Sam put the icing on the cake with a late goal in the 84th minute to push Leverkusen up to third place on the ladder on 21 points.

Kaiserslautern drop down to 15th, one place above the relegation zone, on 10 points.

Author: Darren Mara (dpa, AFP)
Editor: Kyle James