Bundesliga round-up: Wolfsburg edge Schalke in dramatic season opener
Saturday 25 August 2018 20:06, UK
Schalke opened their Bundesliga campaign with a dramatic defeat as they were beaten 2-1 at Wolfsburg on Saturday.
After John Brooks put the hosts ahead in the 33rd minute, Schalke were reduced to 10 men in the 65th when Matija Nastasic was red-carded following a challenge on Wout Weghorst and a VAR review.
Moments later, Weghorst was also shown a red card after he clattered into Guido Burgstaller as he got to his feet, sending him tumbling to the ground, but another VAR review led to that being changed to a yellow.
Last season's runners-up then equalised in the 85th minute through a Nabil Bentaleb penalty, but Daniel Ginczek netted deep into stoppage time to secure victory for Wolfsburg.
Bayer Leverkusen also lost, going down 2-0 at Borussia Monchengladbach.
Leverkusen goalkeeper Ramazan Ozcan saved a first-half penalty from Thorgan Hazard but could not repeat the trick in the 55th minute as Monchengladbach's second spot-kick was converted by Jonas Hofmann.
Fabian Johnson then doubled the advantage three minutes later having combined well with Raffael.
Eintracht Frankfurt's first league game with Adi Hutter as boss ended in victory as they won 2-0 at Freiburg, Nicolai Muller and Sebastian Haller getting on the scoresheet.
Fortuna Dusseldorf were beaten in their first match back in the top flight, with Augsburg coming from behind to win 2-1 at Merkur Spielarena.
Benito Raman's header put the hosts in front before Augsburg replied via headed goals from Martin Hinteregger and Andre Hahn.
Fortuna's fellow newly-promoted side Nurnberg were also beaten, 1-0 at Hertha Berlin, with Vedad Ibisevic scoring the what proved the winner in the 27th minute.
The away side were awarded a penalty in the final 10 minutes, but Mikael Ishak saw his attempt from 12 yards saved by Rune Jarstein.
Saturday's other game saw Werder Bremen draw 1-1 at home with Hannover, Theodor Gebr Selassie's 85th-minute equaliser cancelling out Hendrik Weydandt's effort nine minutes earlier.
