Schalke went top of the German Bundesliga standings on Friday after a 2-1 defeat against Stuttgart. Schalke are now on 54 points, one point ahead of Bayern Munich, who can recapture the lead when they host Freiburg on Saturday. Stuttgart remain in seventh place with 35 points.

"We are happy because we got an important victory. But we must continue to work hard. I hope we can play in the same way as today in the next games," said former Germany striker Kuranyi.

Stuttgart had most of the possession during the first half, but some superb saves from Schalke goalkeeper Manual Neuer denied several goal scoring opportunities by Stuttgart's Pavel Pogrebnyak and Zdravko Kuzmanovic.

Brazilian Edu came on for Schalke for the second half and opened the scoring less than a minute later, taking advantage of a poor clearance by Stuttgart defender Serdar Tasci. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann had no chance of stopping the Schalke onslaught.

But Tasci made up for his blunder four minutes later when he headed the 1-1 equalizer.

Stuttgart tried to play the offside trap but Ivan Rakitic's cross found Schalke captain Heiko Westermann, who gave Kuranyi an easy tap in to score the winner.

Schalke coach Felix Magath played down his team's title chances after the game, but their current winning streak at this stage of the season speaks volumes. His former side Wolfsburg went top of the table at a similar stage last season and went on to win the championship.

"My team played as it always does. More controlled in the first half and more energetic in the second," Magath told reporters.

"But we can thank (goalkeeper) Manuel Neuer that we didn't concede in the first half. After we took the lead we failed to put more pressure on. We were lucky to get away with a win."

Schalke have now won their last eight home matches and Kuranyi's 14th league goal of the season makes him the Bundesliga's joint top goalscorer along with Bayer Leverkusen's Stefan Kiessling.

But Magath knows that with matches scheduled against Hamburg, Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich in the coming weeks the Stuttgart match will be a hard act to follow.

nrt/dpa/AFP

Editor: Andy Valvur