体坛英语新闻：Stuttgart stun Frankfurt in German Bundesliga

BERLIN, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Struggling Stuttgart ended a negative trend when they came from behind to grab a 2-1 win at Frankfurt whilst Luuk de Jong's winner wrapped up a win for Monchengladbach over Hannover to close the 26th round in Bundesliga on Sunday.

Frankfurt were unable to make use of slip ups by their rivals to tighten their Champions League berth as they suffered their ninth loss of the season due to the decider 2-1 by Stuttgart' s Georg Niedermeier, who keeps his side away from relegation battle.

Frankfurt staged a determined start into the encounter to break the spell of 521 goal less minutes. And their efforts rewarded, when Stefan Aigner broke the deadlock against restrained Stuttgart at the 17th minute.

Frankfurt' s Primin Schwegler passed into path of Aigner, who had no problems to beat onrushing Stuttgart goalkeeper Sven Ulreich with a shot into the far post corner.

The visitors tried to respond but Frankfurt remained dangerous on counter attacks by Stefano Celozzi and Sebastian Rode.

However, the hosts were unable to maintain their neat lead as Stuttgart' s restored parity through Vedad Ibisevic. Frankfurt' s Schwegler had brought down Arthur Boka inside the box to cause a penalty, which was converted into the bottom left by Ibisevic.

Frankfurt remained unimpressed and came close to take the lead for the second time but Alexander Meier as well as Takashi Inui were unable to make use of their chances. Instead Stuttgart grabbed the lead through Georg Niedermeier who headed home a corner at the 71st minute.

Nonetheless, Frankfurt tried hard but all their efforts remained fruitless as Stuttgart were able to kill the clock to establish an eight-point gap to the drop zone. Stuttgart jump from 14th to 12th position with 32 points while Frankfurt climb from 5th to 4th position with 39 points.

At the other match on Sunday, Monchengladbach extended their unbeaten run to four matches as Luuk de Jong ensured the only goal of the match against ten-men Hannover.

Luuk de Jong secured the win when he exploited a neat through ball by Patrick Herrmann to beat Ron Robert Zieler one on one inside the box at the 36th minute.

Things went from bad to worse for Hannover when Sergio da Silva Pinto was sent off for booking his second yellow five minutes before final whistle.

The win move the "Foals" from 8th to 7th position with 38 points whereas Hannover stick on 10th position with 34 points.