What was meant to be a great week for Bundesliga football, with the top four all facing off against one another, fell flat on Saturday afternoon as referee Babak Rafati attempted suicide in his hotel room just hours before he was due to officiate the Kӧln v Mainz game. Fortunately, thanks to the fast work of the other three officials, who reacted quickly when Rafati failed to arrive at the stadium on time, he is now recovering and has left hospital.

From a footballing perspective, it took the excitement out of the two big clashes of the weekend, which were both pulsating encounters for very different reasons.

BAYERN MUNICH 0-1 BORUSSIA DORTMUND

After a poor first half, where both sides seemed too scared of the other to play at a quick enough tempo to trouble the other side defensively, the second was explosive. Both sides looked more dangerous after the break without creating anything clear-cut until a horrendous howler by Jerome Boating, who simply lost sight of the ball and allowed Mario Gӧtze the simplest of tap-ins.

This led to a last 25 minutes where Munich got more and more desperate, throwing Ivica Olic and Nils Petersen on to join Mario Gomez up front. Unfortunately the outcome of this was they lost all shape and cohesion to their play.

Despite this, Dortmund still retreated inside their own penalty area for a crazy last five minutes when the ball twice fell for Petersen giving last season’s second division top scorer chances he would have expected to finish. He snatched at both and Dortmund pull back to within two points of Munich.

BORUSSIA MONCHENGLADBACH 5-0 WERDER BREMEN

This was meant to be the game where Claudio Pizarro and company put down a marker that they are serious title contenders, sending upstarts Mӧnchengladbach back down towards mid-table from where they would never return.

Try telling that to the Mӧnchengladbach midfield who played them off the park, with the home side five goals to the good shortly after half-time. It was 21-year-old superstar Marco Reus who was at the heart of everything, firstly linking up with Juan Arango to present 20-year old midfielder Patrick Herrmann with a header to open the scoring.

Then Reus took over with a wonderful individual hat-trick. He scored twice before the break with his third coming just six minutes after the interval with Arango adding a fifth just a minute later. They join Dortmund just two points off the top.

SCHALKE 4-0 NURNBURG

Schalke rise to fourth by scoring four in this one as they had little trouble sending Nürnburg to eight games without a win. Two more from the in-form and face masked Klaas-Jan Hunterlaar either side of one for the evergreen Rául, with Lewis Holtby putting the cherry on top with six minutes left. As for Nürnburg, they drop down to sixteenth.

FREIBURG 2-2 HERTHA BERLIN

A tremendous game with injury-time drama in both halves. Adrian Ramos gave Hertha the lead after 20 minutes and a minute into first-half stoppage time the game looked beyond doubt as Peter Niemeyer made it two in a goalmouth scramble.

There was no telling Stefan Reisinger that though. He hit a tremendous right footed drive on the hour mark to give the hosts a sniff. This was then followed late on by a terrific header from a corner, only for the officials to rule it out due to the corner being taken before the whistle. A five-minute argument ensued that ended up helping Freiburg as in that fifth minute of stoppage time, that man Reisinger ghosted in at the far post to rescue a point to keep Freiburg in touch with the rest.

HAMBURG 2-0 HOFFENHEIM

How a little bit of confidence changes everything. With this win Hamburg exit the drop zone and move up to fourteenth. They deserved it too, but confident sides get lucky too and that was true of Guerrero’s opener, his shot coming straight back to him off the bar allowing him to put it into the now empty net.

There was no luck about the second though as Marcel Jansen picked the ball up on the left in a position of seemingly no danger, before proceeding to waltz right through the Hoffenheim defence to make it two. In all honestly it could have been more.

VFB STUTTGART 2-1 AUGSBURG

Another loss and Augsburg now find themselves cut adrift, three points off Freiburg ahead of them and four from safety. It was a decent performance from Augsburg though, particularly in the first half with Daniel Brinkmann and Sascha Mӧlders having chances to give them the lead.

However, they could not deal with Martin Harnik and that is what cost them. First of all Harnik gave Stuttgart the lead just before half time, but Tobias Werner’s equaliser gave Augsburg hope, before Harnik struck again just four minutes later. All of a sudden, Stuttgart quietly find themselves up in sixth.

KAISERSLAUTERN 0-2 BAYER LEVERKUSEN

A return of 10 goals in 13 games now for Kaiserslautern who find themselves in serious relegation trouble. How they would wish to have the ageing, face masked, Michael Ballack back at the club where it all began.

His attacking thrust was the difference in this one, as he constantly troubled the home defence before his second half shot was fumbled into his own net by Kevin Trapp. Sidney Sam put the game beyond doubt with 20 minutes to go. Leverkusen are still mid-table, but are now looking up instead of down.

WOLFSBURG 4-1 HANNOVER

Edin Dzeko was on target when these two met last season and this time it was a different Bosnian who set the ball rolling for the Wolves, Hasan Salihamidzic getting his first two goals back in the Bundesliga. However, Schulz gave Hannover hope before half time but awful marking and blatent stupidity killed that hope.

First the awful marking allowed Chris to make it 3-1 before Didier Ya Konan stupidly threw the ball against an injured Wolfsburg playing, earning himself a straight red. Alexander Madlung finished it off for the hosts.