Die Seitenlinie: Title race remains open as Hamburg slip into play-off zone

Thorsten Fink saw his Hamburg side fall into the play-off zone after defeat to Wolfsburg© SNS Group

Week 27 in the Bundesliga brought some interesting results as Hamburg slipped into the bottom-three for the first time under Thorsten Fink.

The title race remains wide-open after both Bayern and Dortmund continued to win.

Here's the best of the action from Germany this weekend:

Wolfsburg 2-1 Hamburg: HSV move into the promotion/relegation play-off position after another defeat at Wolfsburg on Friday. The first-half brought us very little in terms of chances but within 120 seconds of the second half, we already had two goals.

Mario Manduzkic opened the scoring for Wolfsburg with his 10th goal of the season before Marcus Berg produced an impressive finish on the volley for his first of the campaign.

But Hamburg's misery was compounded by Marcel Schafer's strike with 15 minutes remaining which leaves Fink's side in a horrible position in the bottom-three.

Mainz 1-3 Hertha BSC: One of the surprise results came at the Coface Arena as Hertha Berlin picked up a valuable three points against Mainz.

Anis Ben-Hatira fired home after 41 minutes and in the first few minutes of the second period, Adrian Ramos smacked home a lovely left-foot finish.

Despite a mini-revival from Thomas Tuchel's men in the second-half, with a goal from Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, Hertha produced one of their best performances of the season with Ramos scoring his second late in the match.

Freiburg 2-0 Kaiserslautern: Freiburg are on the verge of completing a similar “Great Escape” to that of Gladbach last season.

They picked up their 15th point of the ruckrunde (second half of the season) with a comfortable win over Kaiserslautern – who were managed by Krasimir Balakov for the first time.

Two goals within the first 14 minutes from Guede and Makiadi fired Freiburg into an early lead which Kaiserslautern rarely looked to trouble. Balakov's men are seven points adrift with seven matches remaining.

Borussia M'Gladbach 1-2 Hoffenheim: The term “coupon-buster” certainly comes to mind as Hoffenheim snatched an incredible three points at Borussia-Park.

The returning Patrick Herrmann slid in Marco Reus who opened the scoring on 38 minutes with his 15th goal of the season.

But Markus Babbel's men came out a different team in the second half and missed a hat full of chances in the first 20 minutes after the restart.

On 77 minutes, they equalised through Roberto Firmino's deflected effort and after being the main culprit for missing some excellent opportunities, German U-21 international Boris Vukcevic headed home from Sejad Salihovic's corner kick.

Werder Bremen 1-1 FC Augsburg: Augsburg continued an incredible revival of their own in the ruckrunde with a late equaliser in Bremen.

Just after the hour mark, Werder debutant Niclas Füllkrug smashed home a superb right-foot effort for his first senior goal under Thomas Schaaf.

But the game took a dramatic twist in injury time when Paul Verhaegh bundled Koo's cut-back over the line, despite the best efforts of Sokratis to prevent the ball sneaking in which seemed to aggrieve the Werder players.

FC Bayern 2-1 Hannover 96: The title-race is still very much in the balance as Bayern kept up their winning run with a narrow 2-1 home win.

Toni Kroos got the ball rolling on 38 minutes after good work from Arjen Robben who has been in sensational form of late. German striker Mario Gomez added a second for the Bavarians with Kroos assisting.

And despite Didier Ya Konan scoring with 16 minutes remaining, Bayern showed steel and character to make it four wins on the trot.

Schalke 04 2-0 Bayer Leverkusen: Schalke switched places with Gladbach in the top-four and moved into third with a comfortable win over Leverkusen on Saturday evening.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has scored eight goals in his last five matches and another double at the weekend takes his league tally to 22 goals in 25 matches and 40 goals in 40 matches this season.

Christian Fuchs notched up his 13th assist of the season as his cross from the left was headed home by the 28-year-old Dutchman on 18 minutes.

And it was the head of the striker that secured Schalke's second goal when he leaped highest to nod home Jefferson Farfan's cross with four minutes to play.

VfB Stuttgart 1-0 FC Nurnberg: Stuttgart moved just a point behind a European place after Cacau's late winner secured another three points in the ruckrunde.

Bruno Labbadia's men have been in sparkling form in the second half of the campaign and have their eyes firmly set on a Europa League position.

German-Brazilian striker Cacau headed home the winning goal with 12 minutes to go after a pefect cross from Tamas Hajnal.

Cologne 1-6 Borussia Dortmund: Things go from bad to worse for Stale Solbakken as the pressure continues to mount on the Norwegian coach.

But incredibly, the hosts took the lead on 10 minutes through Milovoje Novakovic's header inside the box.

Jurgen Klopp's men were always on top and the league-leaders hit back within 16 minutes when Lukas Piszczek's headed home Marcel Schmelzer's set-piece.

Shinji Kagawa scored twice to take his tally to nine goals this season, the first on 47 minutes with a thumping volley from a tight angle. Goals from Robert Lewandowski and Ilkay Gundogan put Dortmund 4-1 ahead before Kagawa scored his second with ten minutes left.

Croatian attacker Ivan Perisic completed the rout with his third goal of the campaign to keep BVB on the summit of the Bundesliga.

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