Hoffer, Inui fire Eintracht to top in Germany

BERLIN (AFP) –

Frankfurt’s Japanese midfielder Takashi Inui (L) and Frankfurt’s midfielder Sebastian Rode celebrate scoring during the German Bundesliga football match FSV Frankfurt vs Nuremberg.

Goals from Austrian striker Erwin Hoffer and Japanese midfielder Takashi Inui fired newly-promoted Eintracht Frankfurt top of the Bundesliga on Friday with a 2-1 win at Nuremberg.

Coached by Armin Veh, who guided VfB Stuttgart to the 2007 Bundesliga crown, Eintracht are unbeaten with a maximum of 12 points from four games, to move three points ahead of Bayern Munich, who travel to Schalke 04 on Saturday.

The 25-year-old Hoffer, on loan from Serie A side Napoli, put the visitors ahead after 25 minutes when he picked up a corner from the right off Inui to fire into the net on front of a crowd of 45,000 at the Nuremberg Stadium.

Inui, 24, had a chance to put the visitors two goals up three minutes later but Raphael Schaefer proved solid in the Nuremberg goal.

The hosts missed a chance to pull level seven minutes before the break when Nuremberg’s Japanese star Hiroshi Kiyotake rifled a long-range effort but goalkeeper Kevin Trapp deflected the ball away off the post.

Inui grabbed the second for the leaders after 60 minutes, with Sebastian Polter pulling one back for Nuremberg after 76 minutes.

But despite a late flurry of activity by Nuremberg in front of the Eintracht goal efforts for the equaliser from Kiyotake, Polter, Javier Pinola, and Tomas Pekhart all missed the target.