Berlin: Hiroshi Kiyotake scored one goal and set up another as Hannover beat Hertha Berlin 2-0 away to move into provisional fourth spot in the Bundesliga on Friday.
Kiyotake provided the corner for Jimmy Briand to open the scoring in the 44th minute and the Japan midfielder sealed the win by cutting inside a Hertha defender and finishing coolly in the 76th.
It was Kiyotake's second league goal for Hannover since he switched in the summer from relegated Nuremberg.
He thought he'd scored earlier, only for the effort to be ruled out for offside after some good interplay with Leonardo Bittencourt.
"We made it clear from the first second that we're the better team," Hannover general manager Dirk Dufner said. "That was the key to the win."
The victory moves Hannover five points behind Bayern Munich before the rest of the 11th round of games, while Hertha missed the chance to establish itself in the middle of the table after its second successive loss.
The home side came closest to scoring though Genki Haraguchi and Saloman Kalou in the first half.
"We're trying to do everything right but it's simply not working," said Hertha defender Per Ciljan Skjelbred, who was caught out for the second goal.
Poor marking allowed Briand to score before the break, and Bittencourt took advantage of some more lax defending with a cross-field ball for Kiyotake to seal the victory.
Nearly 40,000 supporters attended the game at Berlin's Olympiastadion despite a strike causing disruption to rail services across the country.
