Bayern Munich secured Champions League qualification after an 8-1 goal-fest at St Pauli ensured they will finish at least third and relegated their Hamburg-based hosts yesterday.

Bayern’s rout closes the gap on second-placed Bayer Leverkusen, who drew 1-1 at Hamburg, and means Bayern could now finish second when the season finishes next Saturday. Bayern will need Leverkusen to lose at Freiburg and pick up a win at home to Stuttgart themselves to claim second, with only the top two teams qualifying for the Champions League automatically.

Third place in the Bundesliga means entry to the Champions League play-off round, the final stage before the group phase.

Bayern striker Mario Gomez opened the scoring after 10 minutes for Bayern and then netted his second of the game with nearly an hour gone.

With St Pauli’s defence in tatters, Arjen Robben netted twice and set up Gomez for the simplest of tap-ins with time almost up to give the Germany star his 27th league goal of the season and 38th in all competitions.

Just before the final whistle, Franck Ribery completed the rout with his second goal of the game.

A header by Marcel Eger on 78 minutes proved to be no more than a consolation goal as St Pauli were beaten for the 20th time this season.

Having only come up last term, the north German side will be back in the second Bundesliga as they suffered another relegation to go with their drops in 1978, 1991, 1997 and 2002.

Fresh from having been confirmed 2011 German league winners last Saturday, Borussia Dortmund suffered a 2-0 defeat at Werder Bremen, who are now assured of Bundesliga football next season.

At the bottom of the table, B. Moenchengladbach are on course to pull off one of the most remarkable escape acts after they beat Freiburg 2-0.

It was their third straight victory after previous wins over champions Dortmund and high-flying Hanover.

The win leaves them 16th and they are level with 2009 champions Wolfsburg, whose 2-1 defeat at home to Kaiserslautern has dragged them back into the relegation fight.

Results
B. Leverkusen 1 - Hamburg 1
B. M’gladbach 2 - Freiburg 0
E. Frankfurt 0 - Cologne 2
Nuremberg 1 - Hoffenheim 2
Schalke 1 - Mainz 3
St Pauli 1 - B. Munich 8
Stuttgart 2 - Hannover 1
Wolfsburg 1 - Kaiserslautern 2
W. Bremen 2 - B. Dortmund 0

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.