French star Franck Ribery scored his fourth goal in four consecutive league games on Sunday to seal a 2-1 win at Schalke 04 to put defending champions Bayem Munich in touch with the leaders.

Despite missing the first five games of the season after damaging ankle ligaments playing for France against Italy during Euro 2008 in June, Ribery is back to his best and his first-half strike in Gelsenkirchen put Bayem third.

"That was world-class! You won't see better than that," pundit and Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer told German channel Premiere after watching Ribery.

Hoffenheim dropped to second in the table by virtue of their 1-0 defeat at Hertha Berlin on Sunday as Bayer Leverkusen took over as league leaders with a superior goal difference.

But with five wins from their last five league games, defending champions Bayern are now on 24 points just one behind Hoffenheim and Bayer.

Last month's slump -- which saw them drop to 11 th in the table -- now looks a thing of the past.

"We are very content to drive home with three points," said Bayem coach Jurgen Klinsmann. "Schalke put us under a lot of pressure in the first half.

"We had to correct a few things tactically in the break and afterwards the team was much more compact and things worked better.

"We want to be top of the league as fast as possible, the points will come our way, it is just a question of time."

Bayern took the lead as early as the third minute when Italian World Cup winner Luca Toni, back from a rib injury, combined with Munich captain Mark van Bommel and fired home from close range.

Schalke replied almost immediately when striker Jefferson Farfan converted a pass from Brazilian Rafinha and slotted his shot past Bayern goalkeeper Michael Rcnsing after five minutes.

The best goal of the game came when Ribery linked up with Brazilian midfielder Ze Roberto and scored on 31 minutes after some quick passing to give the guests the three points.

Having won their previous five league games, Hoffenheim were brought back to earth when they were lost 1 -0 to Hertha Berlin at the Olympic Stadium.

Terrible defending by Hoffenheim gave Hertha's former Liverpool striker Andriy Voronin a simple one-on-one with the Berlin goalkeeper on 70 minutes and he made no mistake to put Hertha fifth.

And Germany striker Mario Gomez scored a late header to seal a 2-2 draw for VfB Stuttgart against Eintracht Frankfurt.

On Saturday, Bayer Leverkusen allowed a 3-0 lead to slip in a 3-3 draw at Karlsruhe as the home side made a spectacular comeback.

Bayer missed out on their fifth straight league win while Karlsruhe finally broke a five-game losing streak to share the points.

Hamburg moved back up to fourth with a 2-1 win at home to Borussia Dortmund and having been hammered 3-0 in the Champions League in midweek by Panathinaikos, Werder Bremen are tenth after they drew 0-0 with strugglers VfL Bochum.

A hattrick from Brazilian star Grafitc including a first-half penalty gave Felix Magath-coached Wolfsburg a 3-0 win at home to bottom side Energie Cottbus which put Wolfsburg up to seventh in the table

Mid-table Cologne enjoyed a 2-1 win over Hanover on Friday night.