The second half of the Bundesliga season (known as the ruckrunde) got underway with some fantastic matches which blew the title wide open.

Not only that, but the battle for survival got extremely interesting with Freiburg moving off the bottom of the table.

Here’s the action from Week 18:

Gladbach 3-1 FC Bayern: Die Fohlen kept in touch with the league-leaders at the top of the Bundesliga in an enjoyable opening match at the Borussia-Park.

FC Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer made a costly error in the first game of the season between the two and he repeated the feat on Friday with a slack kick-out which fell only to Marco Reus who fired in to an empty net from around 40 yards.

All eyes were on Reus who agreed a £14m move to Dortmund in January but he was largely ineffective and was up-staged by another Gladbach youngster, Patrick Herrmann. The right-sided midfielder burst through on goal to make it 2-0 on 41 minutes with a great finish from close range.

Herrmann added his second of the night on 71 minutes to cap off an excellent counter-attack from Gladbach involving Arango and Reus. Just a few minutes later, Schweinsteiger pulled a goal back but it was no avail and Lucien Favre’s men made it two wins from two against the Bavarians.

Schalke 3-1 Stuttgart: The Royal Blues are one of the three sides at the top of the Bundesliga locked on 37 points and they dispatched Stuttgart in clinical fashion.

Schalke’s Joel Matip tapped home from a few yards out on three minutes after Kyriakos Papadopolous’ header was well saved. The Greek defender went from provider to scorer with a bullet header on 57 minutes.

Young starlet Julian Draxler capped off a very impressive move with Huntelaar laying off to the 18-year-old who supplied the finish.

Bruno Labbadia’s men netted a late consolation when Christian Gentner’s shot hit the post and rebounded only to Shinji Okazaki who had the easy job of finding the net.

Freiburg 1-0 Augsburg: In the battle at the bottom of the Bundesliga, it was Freiburg who snatched all three points with a late winner against Augsburg.

Substitute Matthias Ginter headed home the winning goal, just minutes after missing an absolute sitter, to send the home fans in to raptures as they claimed a crucial victory in their aim to avoid relegation this season.

Wolfsburg 1-0 Cologne: Felix Magath has been the busiest head coach during the January transfer window with nine new additions as they aim to finish in the top-half this season.

Giant 20-year-old striker Sebastian Polter has been in good form for Wolfsburg in his cameo appearances this season and he made it two goals in 112 minutes of football with the winner against Cologne.

The Billy Goats worked hard with Milovoje Novakovic returning to first-team action but Stale Solbakken’s men were incredibly unlucky to leave the Volkswagen Arena with nothing.

FC Nurnberg 2-0 Hertha BSC: Nurnberg picked up a vital win against Hertha on Saturday to keep their hopes of a top-half finish alive.

Der Club were inspired by Alexander Esswein who was in terrific form and the German U-21 international opened the scoring on 43 minutes. Dominic Maroh added the second five minutes from the end to secure the points in Michael Skibbe’s first match in charge for The Berliners.

Hoffenheim 0-0 Hannover: Hannover’s disappointing away record continues under Mirko Slomka but with a point in Hoffenheim, they remain in seventh with their opponents just one behind.

Kaiserslautern 0-0 Werder Bremen: In an end-to-end match at the Betzenberg, Werder were unfortunate not to take all three points after squandering a number of chances in the second half. Werder look out of the title-race but still in the hunt for a Champions League place.

Hamburg 1-5 Dortmund: Dortmund made a huge statement of intent on Sunday with a crushing victory over Hamburg.

Without Weidenfeller or Gotze, Jurgen Klopp’s side ran riot against a lacklustre Hamburg team which was missing star-performers Gokhan Tore and Ivo Ilicevic. The hosts took the lead on 16 minutes with Kevin Grosskreutz scoring his fifth of the season.

Robert Lewandowski made it 2-0 not long before half-time and Gotze’s replacement Jakub Blaszczykowski adding a third goal after a superb counter-attack. The Polish winger produced a fantastic display and he added his second of the game and BVB’s fourth from the penalty spot on 71 minutes.

His Polish team-mate, Lewandowski, scored the fifth for Dortmund after good work from Grosskreutz before he slotted home his 14th goal of the campaign. The striker has been linked with FC Bayern in recent days after playing a starring role for Dortmund so far in 2011/2012.

Jose Guerrero scored a late consolation but they remain in a tight relegation battle at the bottom of the table.

Leverkusen 3-2 Mainz: Robin Dutt breathed a huge sigh of relief as Leverkusen survived a second half scare at the BayArena to see-off FSV Mainz.

Werkself took the lead early on after Pospech converted in to his own net after nice play from Michael Ballack and Freidrich headed home the second goal just after the half-hour mark.

But Thomas Tuchel would have had some harsh words for Mainz at half-time and they fought back with Eugen Polanski scoring five minutes after the break and substitute Marco Caliguiri producing a superb lob on 53 minutes.

With the pressure slowly growing on Leverkusen, they sneaked in front on 73 minutes with Lars Bender heading home at the near-post.

Player of the week:

Matthias Ginter (Freiburg) – The 18-year-old striker has played just 20 minutes of football this season for Freiburg but his goal on Saturday afternoon against Augsburg could be the difference between Christian Streich’s men staying in the top-flight. Ginter came on for his debut at the weekend and the young attacker showed great maturity to bounce back from missing great chance just moments earlier to head home with two minutes remaining.