The 14th week of the 2012-13 Bundesliga will go down as a brilliant one for Bayern Munich. With Schalke stunned by Hamburg and Dortmund held by Fortuna Dusseldorf on Tuesday, the Bavarians opened up a 10-point lead at the top of the table with a 2-0 triumph over Freiburg.
Their nearest challengers are now Bayer Leverkusen, who claimed a 4-1 victory over Werder Bremen at the BayArena. Elsewhere, there were excellent wins for Hannover, Mainz, Borussia Monchengladbach and Nurnberg. And Goal.com is here to pick out the star performers across Germany.
In goal, Rene Adler makes his fifth appearance of the season, having enjoyed a renaissance of sorts since moving to Hamburg in the summer. The Germany international was once again in fine form as his side beat Schalke 3-1 on Tuesday.
Protecting his goal, we have Dante, a rock at the back for Bayern at the Mage Solar Stadion and Bo Svensson of Mainz, who helped keep Eintracht Frankfurt, this season’s surprise package, at bay. The back three is completed by Dennis Aogo, who won a vital penalty for HSV.
Hiroshi Kiyotake had struggled to recreate his form from the early part of the season in recent weeks, but put in a fine destructive display for Nurnberg against Hoffenheim. He is joined in midfield by Gonzalo Castro, scorer of two Leverkusen goals, Maximilian Beister, who found the target with a ferocious strike from distance, and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, who rose from the bench to seal Bayern’s win.
Up front, we have Shawn Parker, on song for Mainz at the Commerzbank Arena, Mame Biram Diouf, who helped Hannover overcome a poor run of form, and Stefan Reisinger, who netted a dramatic equaliser at Signal Iduna Park to help put another nail in the coffin of Borussia Dortmund’s title defence.