Boniface makes amends to seal Leverkusen victory
Victor Boniface scored a 72nd-minute winner as Bayer Leverkusen completed a 2-1 comeback victory over Eintracht Frankfurt to stay in touch at the top of the Bundesliga.
Defending champion Leverkusen missed a fifth-minute penalty through Boniface, but the Nigeria international made amends in the second half to lift Leverkusen up to 14 points in fourth place, leapfrogging Eintracht.
Leverkusen shot out of the blocks against Eintracht and came close after a minute with a strike from Granit Xhaka.
It was awarded a penalty soon after, but Boniface's weak effort was saved by Eintracht goalkeeper Kevin Trapp.
Eintracht scored first with its own spot-kick in the 16th minute with the league's leading scorer Omar Marmoush, who also hit the woodwork, bagging his ninth goal of the top-flight campaign.
The Egypt forward has now scored in six consecutive Bundesliga matches.
Leverkusen's Robert Andrich completed a superb passing move in the 25th minute to draw the hosts level and the Germany international came close to another goal when he rattled the post with a low drive just past the hour.
But it was Boniface who scored the winner, heading in at the far post after Trapp failed to control a cross into the box.
The visitors squandered a golden chance to level deep in stoppage-time after a mistake by Leverkusen's Lukas Hradecky, who became the first non-German goalkeeper to reach 300 Bundesliga matches.
But Leverkusen prevailed after defender Jonathan Tah managed to clear the ball off the line.
It was a day that also saw RB Leipzig provisionally take over the Bundesliga lead with a 2-0 victory at Mainz.
Leipzig went top on 17 but Bayern Munich was back at the summit by the end of the day's fixtures after another Harry Kane hat-trick saw it defeat Stuttgart 4-0.